TEL AVIV, Israel - July 24, 2011 - Protests that began in Israel over high housing prices have now escalated into a general demand for social justice, with tens of thousands attending a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday and hundreds blocking traffic and clashing with police.
Israeli news site Ynet reported on Sunday that those at the rally repeatedly booed any mention of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and chanted, "Bibi, go home."
"Protestors carrying signs and flags began to gather at Habima Square Saturday evening, where hundreds of tents had been set up in protest in the past week," Ynet explains. "Meanwhile, doctors and medical interns were also protesting in the city after a 110-day strike that has not yet led to a breakthrough in negotiations with the government.
“A large group of dairy farmers also joined the housing protestors with signs slamming dairy product prices and government inaction on the issue. Yoav Zur, a dairy farmer from Be'er Tuvia, told Ynet, ‘It all started with the cottage cheese protest.'"
A blogger at Daily Kos, however, believes that there was a more radical edge to the protests than the Ynet story indicates.
"These protests," The Troubadour explains, "which began as explicit anger at the rising rental prices in cities across the country, have been fueled by the response of Netanyahu's government, which initially, with hostile rhetoric, dismissed them as being part of a large, leftwing movement being funded by outfits such as the New Israel Fund. The initial rhetoric, which claimed that the protests were not about anything other than the 'Zionist Left's' political agenda, only served to increase protesters' anger and resolve."
