Over 100,000 protesters swarmed the streets of 11 cities across the country, dancing to performances by some of Israel's most popular musicians and screaming angry slogans at PM Binyamin Netanyahu.
The protests, which began as a response to the country's housing crisis, and have since spread to a host of social and economic complaints, are posing the greatest threat to Netanyahu's rule as he grapples, unsuccessfully, to quell the growing discontent.
To understand the scope of these protests, around 2 percent of the Israeli population took to the streets this evening, which in the United States would equal approximately 5.5 million.
Several major developments preceded tonight massive rallies, which I will list below in bullet form before moving to tonight's protests:
Israel's most powerful body of trade unions has fully backed the
protests, pledging to throw organized labor's weight behind a
general strike slated to begin on August 1.
Protesters fully rejected a narrow housing plan from Netanyahu to quell the protests -
Israel's most prominent women's organizations are urging parents to back the protesters -
Striking doctors set up camp in front of Netanyahu's residence. -
Protest "tent cities" have been set up in dozens of municipalities, including a
mile-long camp in Tel Aviv.
The Force of Tonight's Protests
In Tel Aviv, estimates are that between 50,000 and 75,000 protesters took to the streets, chanting social justice and anti-Netanyahu slogans, while 15,000 protesters descended upon Netanyahu's residence, where they gathered and shouted, "A whole generation wants a future." In the northern city of Haifa, over 10,000 protesters took to the streets, and in the small city of Kiryat Shmonah, 1,000
people took to the streets, both unprecedented numbers.
And for the first time in these protests, a joint Jewish-Arab protest took place in the city of Nazareth.
As the protests swelled, opposition leader Tzippi Livni (Kadima) called upon Netanyahu to cancel the Knesset's summer recess to handle the crisis sweeping the country.
And as these protests swell, more and more interest groups have joined, including those who are demanding the revocation of Israel's recently-passed anti-democratic laws and those who demand a different approach to Jewish-Palestinian relations and resolution to the two sides' conflict.
My sense is that the force and momentum of these protests have far exceeded anything that Netanyahu could have anticipated, and they only appear to be growing.
While it is certainly too early to predict what the outcome will be as the tent cities around Israel swell, and as a general strike slated for August 1, with the full backing of Israel's organized labor, looms, it is certainly safe to say that what is occurring in Israel right now is nothing short of transformational.
The great questions are:
- Will Netanyahu's coalition survive this crisis, or will the country descend into pre-mature election?
- How broad will these protests become as Israel's progressives experience a sudden rebirth, and as more groups join in? Will they remain focused on domestic issues, or will their force broaden into international issues as well?
I don't have the answers to these questions. But the numbers swelling in the streets make them unavoidable.
History is being made in Israel.
