Empört Euch! und die weltweite Protestbewegung - Eine soziologische Annäherung –

V - Die Bedeutung der Protesten in Israel im Sommer 2011

Univ.-Doz. Dr. Jérôme Segal, Institut für Soziologie, http://jerome-segal.de

„J14“ - Ab dem 14. Juli 2011: die größten Demonstrationen in der Geschichte des Landes

Proteste für soziale Gerechtigkeit Rabin Square Tel Aviv 29. Okt. 2011

“We are the people we’ve been waiting for”

Soon enough, 100,000 users joined the Facebook protest page and at the same time the protest gained momentum and led to a broad public discourse about the high cost of living in Israel.

Housing Protest Social justice protest Cost of Living protest Real estate protest Tents protest The middle class protest

The Trachtenberg Committee was set up by the government to address (i.e. bury?) the demands of the tent protest movement

II – Reaktionen zu dem arabischen Frühling

V – Von der Bewegung „14. Juli“ bis zu „Occupy“

IV – Was erfährt man über die Protestbewegungen?

III – Was erfährt man über die israelische Gesellschaft?

I – Wofür wurde es demonstriert?

+ Discussion with the Israeli artist Tal Adler, who spends his life between Vienna and Tel Aviv & is connected to the main actors of the movement.

Der Schriftsteller und Friedenaktivist David Grossman (2010 Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels für sein Eintreten für den israelisch-palästinensischen Dialog) analysierte die Protestbewegung und erklärte, dass Israel „über alles Solidarität braucht, (…) ein jüdischer Grundwert“.

I – Wofür wurde es demonstriert?

Nach Jahren des wilden Neoliberalismus, durch die allgemeine Privatisierung des Landes und Ausbreitung der Einkommensschere sowie die Armut gekennzeichnet, scheinen die Israelis am Ende ihrer Kräfte zu sein.

Grossmann stellte die Frage: „Wohin ging das Geld?“ und antwortete: „An die Kolonien, an die Besatzung und die Armee, die die Kolonien schützt“, auch wenn er natürlich die Notwendigkeit dieser Armee anerkennt. Israel ist am dritten Platz unter allen Ländern der Welt für Militärausgaben pro Kopf gelandet.

Eine Handvoll wohlhabender Familien…

“Real Democracy Now. Break the Oligarchy. Stop Americanization".

Protest tents on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard

Protest against the rising cost of living in Israel and the dearth of public housing.

From “power to the people” to “tear down the Wall.”

One group of tents is screening a film on veganism while a few blocks away, protestors are viewing a documentary on the Black Panther movement. A band is playing “We are the World.”

Another group has photos of Palestinian home demolitions displayed with signs demanding social justice for all, while just up the road a small group of settlers hand out flyers encouraging Israelis to move to the settlements, where housing is abundant and inexpensive.

Protest for housing, food and health services

“Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies”

II – Reaktionen zu dem arabischen Frühling

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August 7, 2011in Israel

10 Sept. 2011: Israel evacuates ambassador to Egypt after embassy attack.Egypt declares state of alert after three die and more than a thousand are injured as crowds storm the Israeli embassy in Cairo.The incident was the second major eruption of violence at the embassy since five Egyptian border guards were killed last month during an Israeli operation against gunmen. That incident prompted Egypt briefly to threaten to withdraw its envoy.

25. Sept. 2011: Palestine to press for UN vote on full statehood 'as soon as possible‘.President Mahmoud Abbas returns to Ramallah and declares to cheering crowds that the 'Palestinian Spring' has begun

24. Nov. 2011: Binyamin Netanyahu attacks Arab spring uprisings.Israeli PM claims 'Islamic, anti-western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave' vindicates tough stance with Palestinians

III – Was erfährt man über die israelische Gesellschaft?

„Die Zeltproteste sind ein historisches Ereignis. Und nicht nur, weil sie die größten sozialen Proteste in Israel seit Jahrzehnten sind. Sie sind ein historisches Ereignis, weil sie möglichst viele Bevölkerungsgruppen unter einen Hut bringen.“

“Sie scheinen zu begreifen, dass Juden und Araber in Israel heute viele Probleme teilen. Beide haben mit steigenden Lebenshaltungskosten zu kämpfen, die es ihnen immer schwieriger machen, den eigenen Unterhalt zu bestreiten.“

Itzik Shmuli, einer der Anführer der Protestbewegung des letzten Sommers undVorsitzender der Studentenvereinigung, schreibt am 7.2.2012 auf der Website dergrößten Tageszeitung Israels, Jedioth Ahronot, „ynet“ einen Kommentar. Shmuli vertritt die Ansicht, dass man sich in Sachen soziale Gerechtigkeit ein Beispiel an der Bibel nehmen sollte. Der Artikel erscheint im Vorfeld einer Konferenz unter dem Namen „Soziale Gerechtigkeit pflanzen“ des Hartman Instituts, die für den 8. Februar geplant ist, dem Tag, an dem „Tu Bi Shvat“ (das Neujahrsfest der Bäume) begangen wird.

The 2011 Israeli social justice protests are a series of ongoing demonstrations in Israel, beginning in July 2011 and involving hundreds of thousands of protesters from a variety of socio economic and religious backgrounds‐ opposing the continuing rise in the cost of living (particularly housing) and the deterioration of public services such as health and education. A common rallying cry at the demonstrations was the chant: "The people demand social justice!" As the protests expanded during August 2011, the demonstrations began to also focus on other related issues relating to the social order and power structure in Israel.Daniel Dor, who has written extensively on the role of the media in the construction of political hegemony, is one of the leading activists.

Reihe: Democracy Reloaded | Kuratiert von Isolde CharimTuesday, December 6, 7.00 p.m. Bruno Kreisky Forum für internationalen Dialog | Armbrustergasse 15 | 1190 Wien

DANIEL DOR Senior Lecturer, Department of Communication, Tel Aviv UniversityWHERE TO NOW? FROM PROTEST TO ACTION.THE ISRAELI MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

One of the satisfying results of the movement is that questions like gender equality are taken as facts and are no more issues to be discussed: it has become taken for granted for the demonstrators (whereas for many leftists it used to be an issue to address).

On the other hand, there are important issues which were not tackled because it would a lead to an explosion of the movement “within a second” (as Dor said). One of them is the question whereas Israel should be defined first as a democratic or a Jewish State. To him there is a contradiction in this alternative and this cannot be discussed within the movement. It is precisely because this question was eluded that none of the people who joined the tents movement felt excluded. Arabs and settlers were demonstrating together with liberal and religious Jews. We could even see signs stating “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies”. "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies"

The issues were quite down-to-earth, starting with the price of dairy products or housing. Demonstrators felt a sense of solidarity with all those who have difficulties to pay their rent, regardless of their ethnicity. At this occasion, leftists discovered for instance that among the settlers, the majority of them were just families who could not afford living in the 1967 Israel frontiers (Dorr estimates that less than 10% of the settlers are warmongers ready to die for this land).

Dor has the feeling that the movement already changed the society. He heard for instance a woman saying that if she does not get a descent place for her family to live in, she will not send her sons to the army… a very strong statement in a country where its army, the IDF, has become for many citizens an essential part of the Israeli identity.

In Nazareth, tents surrounded by an Israeli flag and a red one have been installed between the older city (Arab inhabitants) and the Jewish part of the city (Nzareth Iliit). Next to the Social Guard, cooperatives have also been created… but the economic aspects are not always put at the core of the protest. If Israel has become the third country in the world for military expenditures per capita (behind the United Arab Emirates and the United States), it is also because of the cost of the occupation.

(Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Yearbook 2011)

IV – Was erfährt man über die Protestbewegungen?

Between parliamentary and participative democracy

New modes of organization and communication have been developed. Whereas in many former protest actions the demonstrators experienced difficulties to communicate together, a useful language of signs has been implemented in the J14 movement (crossed arms when one disagrees, rolling arms to signify repetition and so on).

A former journalist, Daniel Dor and Lia Nirgad established a “Social Guard”, sometimes also translated as “Social Watch”. It has become a mix of parliamentary and participative democracy: citizens enroll to attend to all the commissions of the Knesset and detailed reports are published. The idea is to open the “black box” which represents the Parliament. A bunch of law specialists help them to gain legal access to the meetings and many citizens declared themselves willing to attend. For Daniel Dor, this corresponds to the Kantian idea of democracy: people want to think by themselves. There was undoubtedly a need for free speech combined with a need for action.

"Do not give answers"Estee Segal, Art Director at an advertising agency, based in Tel Aviv and one of the main activists of the social guard, summarizes the period in which raided the activists on the the Parliament: "In all the discussions, we found that the method of administration is problematic, because it does not work for the citizen. On the one hand, the government got bigger , with 39 ministers and deputy ministers, the Knesset, 81 MKs remained active. Them MKs members in three - four committees. They are running between committees, do not always know what they are voting and the coalition pressure on them instructs them to vote for positions even if it is contrary to their position. " Furthermore, Segal reveals, "government officials sometimes throw the responsibility on each other and not give answers. We will continue to be in the Knesset so the public will know what happens there."

"The country slipped from liability"Another activist the Social Watch the social, Nissim Og'r, 55, a lawyer and professor of law institutes financial, attendance on, Labor and Welfare enforcement against employers of contract workers, and wondered why the state does not apply to itself conditions it requires from the private employers hire agencies . Og'r believes that "our presence in the corridors of the parliamentand the committees and the Assembly discussions influences. MKs recognize us, they differentiate between us and the lobbyists. We are on a long distance race. We will tell the public what really happens in the Knesset, and the voters will decide who's good and who is not good ".

V – Von der Bewegung „14. Juli“ bis zu „Occupy“Distanz, Zurückhaltung: wollen nicht über die Besatungzsfrage entscheiden

Of course, the J14 movement is somehow connected with other protest movements that took place in Madrid, Santiago de Chile, Athens or even in the Arab countries. Some demonstrators dared using signs with “Mubarak Assad Netanyahu”, “Tahrir Place Rothschild Avenue” or “Walk like an Egyptian”. The others movements in France or Spain put a condition to a further solidarity with the J14 movement: they had to express their criticism of the occupation of the West Bank. Understanding that their movement would, there again, collapse “within a second”, they eluded the issue.

Mubarak, Assad, Netanyahu

=> Anonymous und die Occupy-Bewegung (20. April)

Discussion with the Israeli artist Tal Adler, who spends his life between Vienna and Tel Aviv & is connected to the main actors of the movement.

Israel: 20700 km2, ca. 7.772.000 Einwohner (Juli 2011), Hauptstadt Jerusalem. Amtssprachen Hebräisch, Arabisch.Bevölkerung: über 80 % Juden, 14 % Muslime, 3,2 % Christen, 1,7 Drusen.Haupthandelspartner: USA, Großbritannien, DeutschlandParlament: die Knesset