Meet Israel’s Alinskyites: How Radicals Infiltrated a New Protest Movement
Israeli politics since 1967 have largely revolved around foreign policy and security. But the gap between incomes and costs as well as the left’s attempt to find some winning issues and the deadlock in the “peace process” have produced a new protest movement complaining about high housing prices that is sweeping Israel.
What is the cause and meaning of this movement?
The protests’ key organizers have clearly political motives, despite the fact that the New York Times claims, “So far, the protesters have managed to remain apolitical.” In fact, the individuals and organizations animating this protest are committed to a left-wing political agenda intended to weaken, embarrass, and, if possible, topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Nevertheless, it is equally true that an authentic cross section of Israelis protest in response to genuinely urgent issues. The first fact should not become an excuse to ignore that reality.
That demonstration leaders and organizers indeed have a political agenda is easy to spot. Many have clear affiliations indicating their hostility both to the current government and to mainstream Israeli positions. Funding is coming from the New Israel Fund and its operational group, Shatil.
Yehudit Ilani, for example, a leader of the protests in Jaffa, is an Israeli-Jewish member of the hardline, Arab nationalist party Balad, which openly supports dismantling Jewish statehood and the ‘”right of return” of Palestinian refugees, that is, Israel’s destruction. The party’s original leader, Azmi Bishara, fled Israel after coming under suspicion of spying for Hizballah and is now openly backing that group from exile. One of its elected members, Haneen Zoabi, supports a nuclear Iran.
Dafni Leef, another protest leader, is an employee of the New Israel Fund. Alon Lee Green, another of the most prominent organizers, is a member of Hadash, the Israeli Communist Party. And so on.
Their motive in promoting social protest is highly political. The Israeli public long ago rejected their positions on the key national issues facing the country, thus consigning them to political irrelevance. They hope social issues will gain them re-admission to the debate. As Dimi Reider, a far-left activist and journalist, explained it:
We have been protesting against the occupation for decades and the number of our support keeps dropping. If we want to reach out to a broad section of the population, we need, at least temporarily, to put the occupation aside.
You should have mentioned the role of our extraordinarily crappy media, always ready to pounce on Netanyahu. Our media has a long history of being on the wrong (meaning Left) side of every issue. The media has done it’s very best to obfuscate the role of our looney-left in this protest. They have been playing up this protest big-time, devoting article after article every day. Every article is slanted & biased, all the blame being placed on Netanyahu.
There are almost no articles accurately describing the nature of Israel’s economy & the root causes of the high cost of living. And, as I said, the views of many of the organizers is being deliberately hidden from view, views repudiated by the vast majority of Israelis.
I also have to laugh when you say Israelis don’t like to be ”suckers” (freiers, in Hebrew) – quite the contrary, we are the biggest suckers on Earth.
“You should have mentioned the role of our extraordinarily crappy media, always ready to pounce on Netanyahu. Our media has a long history of being on the wrong (meaning Left) side of every issue. The media has done it’s very best to obfuscate the role of our looney-left in this protest.”
Terry, I get this from reading the English language websites of these outlets. Even JPost has gone very soft – I strongly disagreed with their apology to Norway — it is Norway who should apologize, and Caroline Glick Pwned both Norway and her bosses in her last op-ed piece — and I wonder, apart from Arutz Sheva, who is actually representing Likudniks and other people on the Israeli right.
Yes, the JPost has definitely moved left, it was always the ”respectable” media outlet but of late, has become of little or no interest, exception made for Glick & Sarah Honig. Strangely, the JPost censors even more than YNET.
There are some publications in Hebrew, Yisroel HaYom,for example, which are more right-wing (if you consider Likud right-wing).
Rick Perry has told the Muslims that he agree with their hate of Israel.
Don’t believe it then google it…..Muslims and Rick Perry in Texas.
This Perry does not have the love that Sarah Palin has for Israel.
On Palin’s trip to Israel, the PM wanted to give her a Formal State Dinner and Palin said no thank you…She said yes to a private dinner with the PM and his wife…….She told him she stands with Israel 100%……
(BS) ~ This guy Perry, is just one more piece of garbage politician…..
Rick Perry, the so called conservative Gov of Texas, signed a bill giving illegals the Dream Act. It was his idea and plan……… (all on the tax payers dime)
He said in 2001 in his speech he supports open border with Mexico.
After a few failed attempts he finally gave up on his Super Hwy. going well into Mexico, that would have cost the tax payers billions of dollars.
He was a strong supporter of letting Mexican trucks and drivers enter and work in the US. (taking thousands of jobs from Americans)
He kept trying to pass a bill making girls starting in the sixth grade, take some kind of vaccine that had to do with being sexually active….(It was extremely unpopular and he kept trying) ~ Later they found he had a strong connection with the company called Merck…….
He gave free medical to illegals and also to Mexicans on the Mexican side of the border. (all of this was on the tax payers)
Some of it is on Kerry Picket’s article in Washington Times, just type Kerry Picket in search and scroll down about three wks ago.
I know all of this is hard to believe so google it and do research then pass it on.
If push comes to shove and it comes down to Rick Perry, Ron Paul, I will vote for Obama…Man I hate to say that but it’s true……..At least I never heard Obama say he wants open borders with Mexico.
My pick for president is Sarah Palin with Sheriff Joe, Herman Cain, Jeff Sessions, Mitt Romney as Sarah’s VP.
“Drill Baby Drill”
Especially when they look to Europe and the US as role models, which comes out again and again when watching their TV discussions.
Terry:
Jpost is actually more open to talkbacks if you create a yahoo id and login to yahoo through their talkback tool every comment will be published immediately except ones with links. Guest comments are almost never posted.
Take a look at an article that just showed up on YNET, an editorial op-ed that is positively shameless propaganda. I wrote a comment but I bet it’s censored, nothing new there, YNET often censors comments that don’t fit the ”party line” – YNET is becoming another Haaretz, the Israeli version of the New York Times (in Israel, we call Haaretz the Palestinian newspaper published in Hebrew).
True, Yediot (YNet) is owned by the Moses family, and serve as the yellow daily of record! The so called deputy P.M, and a minister of obscure and utterly meaningless function, a full time poser, wannabe, Silvan Shalom, is married to the woman who inherited the Yediot fortunes. The daily is used as a personal tool to bolster his unpopular standing, mainly among residents, the children of the nearly one million from the Arab diaspora. This daily does not have much ethics, nor integrity, but is a good money machine. Facts, significant investigative reporting, serious journalism was never on the menu. It is the establishment daily, employing many useless lefty opionators, rejects from the imploding Labor party, groupies of European “Socialismo”, but none has much to add to the public debate.
Mr Spyer.
It would be most appreciated if you listed radicals & their associations. This way, we get to separate the radicals from the dupes & useful idiots.
We most certainly will not get this information in our lousy media.
Thanks in advance.
Israel seems to have “high-level” traitors intent on betraying their country at every turn. These appear to be mainly in the media and the judiciary.
Were it not for this terrible drain on the country’s resources there would probably be more than enough to go around.
Come to think of it, the same would seem to be true for every western country.
What is going on, indeed?
The economic inequalities and dysfunctions in Israel deserve serious treatment by the government.
But I am almost certain that when the colleges and universities, the grade schools and the kindergartens, and the pre school nurseries reopen, that this particular protest movement will screech to a halt.
“The economic inequalities and dysfunctions in Israel deserve serious treatment by the government.”
Mr. Besig, I have not been to Israel in many years, but I have a lot of family in Israel – better educated, and on the upscale side of the divide. But let me ask you this:
How many of the underclass are poor for reasons of their own behavior? I know that out-of-wedlock births are actually fairly low in Israel compared to the rest of the Western World, but how many of them have good work ethics and good study habits compared to those who are successful? And even with the reduced power of organized labor in Israel, it is still more powerful than here in America.
So can’t you at least admit that part of the problem is the actions of the underclass themselves?
If you want to call the majority of Israelis an underclass, then you might be right. I have plenty of family living in Israel, all of whom are hard working people in middle-class level jobs. They struggle to pay bills, save money, eat well, and have to work very long hours in not particularly fulfilling work. While you might argue that this is the way of things, that one should struggle to hold on to middle-class life-style, I happen to disagree. You shouldn’t have to work to live and live to work.
This guided protest missile does seem to be manned, er… personed by students on summer break and for that reason reckoned that they would peter out with september. Then, what better time for the Histadrut to co-ordinate a timely and traditional teacher’s strike in solidarity with this ‘closed circuit’ putsch. The aim being increase, in conjunction with the established “Opposition”, to apply internal pressure on the government in hopes of toppling it at best, or leading to resource wasting elections.
The powers that be – the establishment press, mainstream media, et al – behind this artificial wave of protests (though many of the grievances are common, real and addressable) want the public to believe that this manufactured widespread agit prop protest in the streets and the hastily organized ad hoc, extra-legal committees of prestigious academics have, by right of fiat, to discourse with the duly elected organs of government. This skewed purview seeks to obfuscate and circumnavigate democratic process, supplanting it with a counterfeit anarchistic majority. If these folks confuse their with due processes of democracy, they are ignorant of what a democracy is (and I’m NOT referring to a People’s Democratic Republic of Israel, if you get my drift.) If they are aware of their actions in the face of the right of a government to administrate and legislate by consent of election, then they and their agendas are anti-democratic. And, historically, very poor losers.
Oops, some glaring typos in there. I should have proofed it before posting. My apologies.
D.
“Personed”? Surely you meant “perchilded”.
io non capisco tutta qetusa disapprovazione da parte della gente lo sparatutto su binari un genere come l adventure, action ecc.non potete dire che da sala giochi solo perch nato li. Forse pu nn piacervi come gusti personali ma non si pu dire che deve restare nelle sala giochi, xk c gente (cm me)a cui il genere piace e trova sul wii il meglio di se
I don’t accept this is a cross section of Israel. For better or worse they are overwhelmingly Ashkenazi (Western in origin), Hiloni (secular), middle class and middle twenties to late thirties in age.
What they are is the spiritual children of Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. The group who would be voting Labor if that party’s combination of huge egos, rigid bureaucracy and insistence on continuing the failed Palestinian project hadn’t driven them away and the party into near oblivion.
@ David: Nail on the head. you got in one.
“Political agendas” or no political agendas, is not the fundamental economic question here how it can be made less expensive to do business in (and out of) the Jewish State?
Happy days.
Israel should be able to distribute the wealth more evenly. The wealthy will have to open their wallets or rioters will take it.
“The wealthy will have to open their wallets or rioters will take it.”
I would be willing to bet the caskets for your dead rioters that at least half of the “wealthy” as you call them are supporters of the socialist-era programs and regulations that crush OTHERS trying to enter business to compete and lower prices, as well supporters of government control of the land that keeps home prices too high.
Based on your class-warfare language, we can only hope that you are not one of those apparatchiks who stands on the sidelines encouraging leftists, anarchists and jihadists, but who is too much of a bum to do any real work, and too much of a coward to “take it”.
The redistribute-the-wealth-mentality is killing America. It killed England. Hopefully, Israel can find a creative solution but price fixing and give-a-ways are destructive.
Morris you miss the point, completely. This is not about wealth redistribution. We pay 35 to 50% withholding taxes in Israel and then another 16.5 % VAT on the rest when we shop or pay utilities. Natanyhu tried about 10 yrs ago to reduce taxes and VAT, but Sharon, Olmert and Livini, et al upped the VAT from 15.5 to 16.5 and there it sits. All that money is used to support an bloated over controlling govt bureaucracy. For example: Land in Israel is not privately owned and making plots available for building is a complex process of bureaucrats, contractors and politicians greasing each others palms until the land is made available. Building does not reflect demand on the open market, and it cannot be influenced by it. Prices for various food commodities and services are fixed by bureaucrats and political appointees, so again, there is no market pressure on prices in either direction. ALL of these structures in govt are the legacy of Ben Gurion, Mapai, Maarach, and Avoda over the past 70 years, predating the establishment of the state. The Likud started to dismantle these dinosaurs in the ’90′s starting with the communications industry, which the Leftists insisted could not be unregulated or reorganized. Likud went ahead anyway and today, everyone who wants one can have a phone-landlines and cells,with no waiting lists or paying anyone off and prices for international calls and VOIP are so low that there are hundreds of companies using Israel for outsourcing telephone customer service and telemarketing, creating thousands of jobs.
these problems are not attitude, culture but simply the legacy that the same whinny leftists in today’s gave to Israel coming home to rot the rest of us.
I’ve lived in Israel since 1986. I’ve eaten a lot of rice and beans in that time because I have to pay all those other people’s salaries. I don’t even have a car right now. I can’t afford to keep one up.
“Funding is coming from the New Israel Fund and its operational group, Shatil”.
Mr. Jonathan Spyer. can you explain what is this fund about, who is behind it, what are the real funding sources? Have you considered the similarities between the overthrow of Bibi by Bill Clinton in 1998, with the help of Democratic polling hack, Stan Greenber, and James Carville,(his book about Democrats in power for the next 40 years was recently selling for $1.00 at 99 Cents Store chain)replacing him with the ” Caviar Socialist” Barak, a failed and disliked P.M.
This sudden outburst, with many legit demands looks very much like a manufactured event, with funding to many events and logistics coming from outside sources. I do not know who they are, but it appears like European money coming in to various NGO’s and I would not dismiss the possibility that the U.S got its hand in this, indirectly, as we are witnessing a tradition: Democratic President, behind toppling Israeli P.M for the second time in a generation.
In the EFW (economic freedom of the World) index, Israel rates 6.67/10, barely above China, Russia, and India. The only EU country rated (slightly) lower is Romania, and most EU countries (let alone the US) are rated significantly higher.
http://www.freetheworld.com/release.html
Even though I know very little about Israel, let me offer a suggestion:
Israelis should consider that, maybe, socialism is not the solution to their problems: socialism is the problem.
Nail on the head.you got it. thanks for the link!
You’re very welcome! Constructive criticism (and sometime even destructive criticism) is extremely useful, but it’s also nice to get some unqualified appreciation once in a while.
within a few years the gas field discoveries will be operational and there is money to be made by sale of that plus saved money now spent in Egypt to buy energy. It will bring investment money too.
If Israel did not have to constantly pour so much money into security it would be a lot better off monetarily too.
I think Netanyahu did not have a “let ‘em eat cake” response- he thoughtfully addressed the protest issues and put forth a very sensible plan to address the issues. I do see sinister hands behind the scenes here, same as in USA and elsewhere. Agitation theater created by the usual suspects.
I think this generation of Israelis do not have the same spirit as the founders generation. They grew up taking certain things for granted and not as willing to undergo hardships to keep the country together.And as many young people are idealistic they do not see they are being manipulated, or by whom.
The land and housing shortages are also a direct result of not allowing expansion to areas rightfully belonging to ISRAEL (Judea & Samaria) and of course the ethnic cleansing of GAZA and all those families now needing resettlement into an already very crowded nation.
Very well put. Point by point. The sincerity of our protesting ‘בters may be questioned precisely because of what they are NOT protesting against – the actual abandonment of those families ethnically cleansed from Gaza, who still have no homes and/or have been left grasping at air by the very proponents of ideologies that forced them out.
D.
sorry you’re both missing what is happening. Do you live here? See my comment to Morris.
The best way to undermine extremists is to honestly address the issues without the usual favoritism.
The failure to address these issues play directly in the hands of extremists. So the govt is at fault since they give the opportunities to the extremists.
This is one of the reasons Hitler got to power.
Leaders are stupid enough to refuse to learn from history.
Most men are satisfied only with some food in the kitchen and a woman in the bedroom. But when the Jew comes into town showing expensive Bibles and goodies the sleepy wake up and reach into their wallets. The world stops turning when the Jew is celebrating his Sabbath. Civilizations would gather dust without the vision and greed of the chosen people.