Paths in the desert

Petra was chosen by the BBC as one of “the 40 places you have to see before you die.” Admittedly, the finality of the phrase “See Naples and die,” didn’t prevent me visiting Naples four times. However, so far I haven’t been to Petra. Nevertheless, if the opportunity arises I will go there on my annual holiday, either before or after visiting the other 39 places. My fascination with a place I have never seen stems from visits to another Nabatean city, Avdat.

Situated in the central Negev, Avdat like Petra lies off the beaten track. Even route 40, a secondary road south, doesn’t quite reach Avdat

The ruins of three other Nabatean towns - Haluza, Mamshit and Shivta, with their associated fortresses and arid region farms were once part of a well beaten track, the renowned incense and spice route of the ancient Levant. A trade route that stretched from Oman and Yemen, via Petra and the Negev towns and caravanserais to Gaza. For centuries the Nabateans monopolised this route Precious frankincense and myrrh, at times as precious as gold were brought to the Gaza coast and shipped to Greece and Rome.

It seems that the Nabateans were pre-Islamic Arab tribes that absorbed and adapted other cultures, languages and religions. They were literate yet they left behind no literature of any worth. After the Arab conquest they assimilated completely and ceased to exist as an ethnic entity.

About 15 km southwest of Avdat lies the Egyptian border, Israel’s oldest border. In 1892 Lord Cromer, the British Administrator of Egypt advocated annexing the Sinai peninsular in order to add“strategic depth” to protect Britain’s vital asset, the Suez Canal. Cromer's proposed border line with the Turkish province, often referred to as Palestine, was drawn from a point on the Mediterranean coast of Sinai east of El-Arish then southeast to the Gulf of Aqaba at the northwestern point of the Arabian Peninsula. Finally in 1906 after lengthy negotiations the Turkish government agreed to the British modified proposal.

For many years after the Six Day War many Israeli politicians, military strategists, journalists and probably the majority of Israelis valued the “strategic depth” Sinai afforded us. However once the peace treaty with Egypt was signed Sinai was returned to Egypt and the old border reverted to its former status. According to the terms of the peace treaty Egypt was permitted to maintain a small lightly armed force in Sinai for the purpose of policing the region.

A border fence stretching along Lord Cromer's demarcation line will eventually seal our most porous border. So far only 20% of the fence has been erected. It is a simpler, cheaper version of the Gaza security fence. It won’t seal the border hermetically, but it will delay infiltrators of all kinds and give the security forces time to apprehend them.

The details of the terrorist attack perpetrated last week are well known, suffice to say that it was carried out by elements of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an organisation with close operational ties to Hamas. It was controlled from Gaza and followed the so-called "U-route," by which Palestinian terrorists attempt to move from Gaza to Sinai and then into Israel. The attack itself was carried out along a strip of the Israeli-Egyptian border north of Eilat along route 12, where the road runs very close to the border in an area frequently used for illegal immigration and smuggling.

As many as twenty terrorists were involved in the ambush. Apparently they comprised several groups acting in concert. They used a variety of weapons, including at least one rocket-propelled grenade, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), explosive vests, and a mortar. They attacked two civilian buses and several cars and used IEDs against IDF units responding to the action. The scope and complexity of the operation suggests careful planning, good intelligence gathering, significant logistics preparation and tenacity.

The Israeli General Security Service (GSS/Shabak) got word of the terrorist group’s movements and intentions. A general alert was sent to the IDF southern command some days before the attack. Unfortunately the GSS didn’t know exactly when and where the attack would take place. In response to the alert special combat forces from the Golani Infantry Brigade and the police counterterrorism unit were deployed. At the time of the attack they responded quickly and efficiently. In the pursuit that followed the attack an IDF soldier and a counterterrorism police commando were killed. Seven terrorists were killed in the counter action. During the pursuit some Israeli soldiers crossed the border briefly and shallowly to engage the retreating terrorists.

After identifying the PRC as the group responsible, Israel retaliated strafing its command headquarters in Rafah. PRC leader Kamal Nairab (alias Abu Awad) and four of his lieutenants were killed, including military commander Imad Hamad, who Israeli intelligence believes planned the attack.

More broadly, the incident highlights the challenge Israel faces in responding to threats from the Sinai. Because of the peace treaty with Egypt, Israeli forces cannot operate in the area and must rely on Egyptian authorities to control criminal and terrorist activity there. Even if the IDF has warning of an attack, it cannot do much more than increase its state of preparedness, reinforce its side of the border, and communicate the warning to the Egyptian authorities.

The attack also accentuates Cairo's growing Sinai problem. The vast Sinai Peninsula and 274 km border with Israel have always proven difficult for Egyptian governments to control, including the Mubarak regime. But the situation has become more chaotic since the revolution, with smuggling, crime, and violence increasing significantly, including several attacks on gas pipelines and a recent assault by some 200 jihadists and Bedouins on an Egyptian police station at al-Arish in northern Sinai.

Indeed, conditions in the area have been exacerbated by the government's traditionally poor relations with the Bedouin population. Cairo has put most of its effort into policing the Sinai's northeast corner, where its ongoing "Operation Eagle" aims to disrupt criminal and jihadist activity. Yet this focus has left the central area more vulnerable to such problems.

In a recent issue of Policy Watch published by the Washington Institute for Near East policy Jeffrey White and Ehud Yaari analysed possible causes that spurred the attack. " Lately Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist groups have been applying pressure on Hamas to allow them to carryout attacks against Israel. Some group leaders may have believed that such an operation could relieve the pressure while avoiding full-scale Israeli retaliation, given that the attack was not conducted directly from Gaza.

Israeli sources indicate that the operation was also intended as a kidnapping action based on the Hezbollah model: that is, a border attack coupled with the seizure of military personnel or civilians. Israeli civilian vehicles using this road are certainly vulnerable to such tactics, though no Israelis were taken in this instance. Moreover, Hamas has never really given up on kidnapping as a strategy, bearing in mind that the PRC aided Hamas in the 2006 kidnapping of Gilad Shalit."

Travel between Egypt and Gaza has become much easier since the Egyptian Military Council reopened the border crossing at Rafah. Islamic terrorist groups are taking advantage of weaker security.

Since the opening of the Rafah border crossing there has been a sharp downturn in the "tunnel business." For years, the best way to make a living on the Egypt-Gaza border was to dig a tunnel under the border.

Tunnel entrepreneurs have joined forces with smugglers to supply Gaza with everything from powdered milk to Mercedes-Benz cars.

Dr. Diane Shammas, a Californian specialising in Arab American studies was a lecturer at Al-Azhar University in Gaza during 2010 and 2011.

In a piece she called "Kafka at the Rafah border," published by Al Jazeera, Dr. Shammas (her father was born in Lebanon) recounts the tortuous efforts to enter Gaza, "What should have been a simple border crossing turned into a four-month odyssey through the iron curtain of Gaza." Most of that time she spent at the Rafah crossing waiting for the Egyptian bureaucracy to process her entry visa. In trying to justify the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing Dr. Shamas describes how she sometimes experienced life in Gaza,

“A flexible Rafah border crossing becomes even more critical for Palestinian civilians when Israel initiates an escalation of attacks on Gaza. The relatively flat topography of the narrow coastal strip offers no immediate refuge from the sputtering Apache helicopters and the somnolent buzzing drones that can strike anywhere at any time.”

From the ground I’m sure it is a frightening experience, however the attacks she mentioned and the latest reprisals have been targeted executions like the attack on PRC command headquarters at Rafah last week and the assassination of Islamic Jihad leader Ismael al-Asmar who organised and funded the PRC attack last week. In addition terrorist squads preparing to launch rockets or fire mortars have been annihilated before or after firing their salvos. Terrorist facilities, ammunition dumps and weapons manufacturing machine shops have also been targeted.

The targeted assassinations are definitely effective. The higher the rank of the victim the greater the demoralisation among the rank and file terrorists.

Let’s return to the murderous attack on the buses and cars perpetrated last week. During the chase after the retreating terrorists Egyptian military personnel were caught in the crossfire. It’s not clear if two or more Egyptian soldiers were killed inadvertently by Israeli fire.

It’s interesting to compare the Israeli and the Egyptian response to the incident.

The IDF ordered an immediate investigation to determine how the Egyptian soldiers were killed. Israel’s minister of defence Ihud Barak thought it pertinent to apologise for the unintentional killing of Egyptian soldiers before the investigation report was published . The Egyptian interim government claimed the apology was insufficient. Simultaneously crowds demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

Barak’s apology sparked off a ''for and against apologising" controversy in the Israeli news media.

I singled out one op-ed article that appeared in Yediot Ahronot . Calling for “No more apologies,” it stated “The Egyptians, without even a shred of corroborating evidence, rushed to blame the IDF – rather than lunatic Islamic fanatics - for the death of Egyptian soldiers. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Israel’s embassy in Cairo, demanding the abrogation of the 1979 peace treaty. It seems quite evident that many Egyptians were looking for a reason to blame us.”

Military affairs commentator Ron Ben-Yishai reported on the findings of the IDF investigation. He said, “The IDF did everything in its power to prevent Egyptian troops from getting hurt in the attack last week.

Videos shot from an IDF helicopter show that the soldiers intentionally diverted fire from the Egyptian all-terrain vehicles and soldiers towards open areas near the border post, from which the terrorist sniper fire originated. The terrorists, who positioned themselves a short distance from the Egyptian military post launched an RPG at one of the helicopters and directed machine gun fire at it.

In addition, an examination of the bodies of the terrorists killed by the IDF clearly showed that at least three of them were Egyptian citizens. One was a member of a radical Egyptian group who was tried and sentenced to imprisonment in Egypt. He escaped from prison during the first days of the Egyptian revolution, when several Cairo prisons were broken into as hundreds of Imprisoned Jihadist terrorists escaped to Sinai. Many reached the Gaza Strip and Egypt is demanding that Hamas extradite them. The Egyptian terrorists joined Palestinian operatives from the Popular Resistance Committees and together they perpetrated the coordinated attacks. Israel has further proof that joint Palestinian-Egyptian terror cells were in Sinai for weeks and were assisted by Bedouins in the region

The IDF investigation report claims the Egyptian troops noticed the presence of the terrorists even before the attack was launched, but did nothing to prevent it. Only later that evening did an officer and a few soldiers leave their post, evidently to stop the ongoing sniper fire. The terrorists, who were wearing uniforms similar to those of the Egyptian army, resisted the interference. It’s possible that at the moment when the Egyptian soldiers and the terrorists merged that the Egyptians were caught in the crossfire and hit.”

In the meantime the rules of the game have changed. The two operating Iron Dome anti-missile systems are performing well, in fact well beyond expectations. Of course the Iron Dome has limitations. It is new and the crews operating the two units are learning the fine tuning under fire. So far they have chalked up 93% successful interceptions. Two more units will be delivered to the IDF by the end of the year and by 2013 a total of 13 units will be defending the Gaza periphery and our border with Lebanon.

Islamic Jihad tried to counter the Iron Dome’s successful interception rate by firing a barrage of rockets at Beer Sheva. The single unit defending the city performed well. It seems the Islamic Jihad blitz tactic has its downside. The crews launching Grad rockets are exposed to an immediate IDF retaliation.

Early this week the Egyptians brokered a ceasefire with Hamas without involving Israel in the negotiations. Hamas is trying to maintain a ceasefire but Islamic Jihad feels free to continue firing Kassam rockets and mortar shells at short range targets in the Gaza periphery communities.

I’ll conclude by wishing my family and friends in the Gaza periphery communities the peace and quiet they deserve.

Have a good weekend.

Beni 25^th of August, 2011.

Guns and butter

By no stretch of the imagination can Rothschild Boulevard be compared to Tahrir Square.

The Egyptian protests that brought down the Mubarek regime are still in limbo

with no discernible leadership. There are fears that this is an opportune time for the Muslim Brotherhood to fill the vacancy. They are well organised and possess a well defined hierarchy.

In Tel Aviv the first people to put up tents in the Boulevard made no claims to leadership and shied from being identified with any political organisation.

However, it soon became clear that if the protesters intended to formulate their demands and effect a change they needed organisation and leadership.

In the span of a few weeks a young dynamic leadership emerged, people capable of pitting their wits against seasoned politicians. Notable among them is Itzhik Shmueli, chairman of the National Student Union.

Now after demonstrations in both the main population centres and the "provinces" the protests have reached a crucial stage. Admittedly, they have sufficient momentum to organise a few more Saturday night mass gatherings replete with speeches and musical performances, but where are they heading?

Author and journalist Yakir Alkariv says the protest's leaders should pull down their tents and move their struggle to the political arena. Alkariv claims that so far the protest's main achievement has been the setting up of the Rothschild Committee headed by Professor Trachtenberg, but half the government sits on the committee, "In other words: A big zilch."

"As long as the struggle remains stuck in place at this stage, it does not threaten Netanyahu and mostly disturbs the neighbours on Rothschild Boulevard."

"In order to change the system you have to be a part of it. You can't do it in tents, the protest has to move from the Boulevard to parliament."

Just two weeks ago another journalist described the Rothschild Boulevard phenomenon in the following words,

"An Israeli public that seemed apathetic and self absorbed— numbed by the intractable conflict with the Palestinians and disillusioned with its political leadership — has filled the streets, fueled by the energy of young activists who have shunned established political parties."

The protest leadership knows that throwing in its lot with any of the political parties will cause dissension. At present the protest is a popular movement and any attempt to politicise it will most likely splinter it into several factions.

Its critics have already claimed it is the product of left-wing intrigues.

"Beware of the 20^th of September and all that will come in its wake," warn the people who think the protest has a limited time slot. Once the Palestinians start protesting you can forget your housing crisis.

Reluctant to be coerced by an event that might not happen the protest leaders advocate a more measured strategy. They say let’s not rush into anything ill-considered. There will be time,"And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions."

To help the protesters formulate their demands and their strategy a voluntary committee headed by Professors Yossi Yonah and Avia Spivak has formed.

Professor Yonah said his team's goal was to devise a new socioeconomic policy centred upon citizens' welfare. No timetable has been set for work undertaken by the committee's nine sub-groups, which are comprised of some 60 academics and experts in fields of economics and social welfare, many of them are known to hold social democrat views. Professor Avia Spivak, a former senior official at the Bank of Israel, outlined three initial demands - the establishment of a two-year state budget, an increase in taxes, and the expansion of government expenditure.

Yossi Yonah stressed that his committee of experts was an independent initiative, and that its purpose was to assist those who were conducting the protests.

Referring to the Rothschild Committee headed by Professor Trachtenberg he said, "We have no desire to negotiate with an ad hoc committee established by the government; that's not our purpose. Like the protesters, we have no intention of discussing matters with committees whose goal is to mislead the public and to squander this opportunity to repair distortions in Israeli society." Heads of the tent protest movement, along with representatives of student organisations and youth movements evinced support for the formation of this independent committee of experts and expressed scepticism about the prime minister's intentions and the Trachtenberg committee's ability to bring about real change.

Two weeks ago singer-song writer Shlomo Artzi appeared on stage with other performers at the central demonstration in Tel Aviv. In the repertoire of songs he sang the vintage favourite “How much will it cost us,” took on a new significance.

NIS 36.6 billion ($10.4 billion) is the off-the-cuff estimate submitted by the protesters. The Ministry of Finance countered with a much larger estimate – NIS 60 billion ($17 billion).

It has been argued that some of the money can be obtained by rearranging our priorities and tax reform. Three possibilities have been mentioned: The West Bank settlements, preferential budgeting for Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities and the defence budget. All three are well represented in the coalition government so it's unlikely that the prime minister will be eager to "take from Peter to pay to Paul."

Hagai Segal, a right-wing journalist who distinguished himself in the 80’s as a member of the "Jewish Underground" and as a result spent some time in a “correctional facility,” attempted to defend the investment in settlements over the “Green Line.” In an article published in Yediot Ahronot last week he asserted, “There is no doubt about it, Israeli governments over the years invested huge sums of money in the settlements enterprise. However, they always sought the voter’s approval first.”

Well it seems we got our deserts. "The people wanted settlements." Concludes Segal, "As opposed to all the social-demagogue chatter we are hearing, this was not a waste of money. After all, the 330,000 settlers have to live somewhere - If not in Beit El then in Carmiel.

Moreover, the settlement enterprise constitutes a peripheral area to a no lesser extent than the Galilee and Negev regions."

Leaders of the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Authority were probably surprised by remarks made by the prospective Labour Party leader Shelly Yachimovich in an interview she gave to Haaretz. The full interview will be published in Haaretz Friday Magazine. Yachimovich defended her party's role in the establishment of the settlements

"I certainly do not see the settlement project as a sin and a crime. In its time, it was a completely consensual move. And it was the Labour Party that founded the settlement enterprise in the territories. That is a fact, a historical fact."

When asked by her interviewer if the billions that were invested in the settlements had been invested inside the Green Line, maybe we wouldn't need the tents. Ms. Yachimovich replied, "I am familiar with that well-known equation: that if there were no settlements there would be a welfare state within Israel's borders. I am familiar with the worldview that maintains that if we cut the defence budget in half there will be money for education. It's a worldview with no connection to reality."

When it was pointed out that it is part of current public discourse to suggest that less funding for West Bank settlements and defence would mean more money for social service needs, Yachimovich said: "I reject it; it is simply not factually correct, even though it is now perceived as axiomatic. A school that is located in a settlement and has X number of students would be located inside the Green Line and have the same number of children at the same cost. I don't say that the settlements themselves did not cost more money. But even if the defence budget were cut in half, and even if the settlement costs were cut in half, the economic ideology that led us to them would not seek to divert the newly available funds to the service of the state.”

The Christian Science Monitor proffered another opinion taking the Boulevard tent community to task pointing out that, "Israelis protest costly housing – but not cost of settlements. Why?

Israel’s government invested four times more per capita in public building in the West Bank than the national average in 2009, and twice as much per capita in West Bank municipal governments, according to data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics."

The Monitor quotes Gidi Grinstein, director of the Reut Institute in Tel Aviv, "Settlers are a well-organised minority interest group that has traditionally had far more influence on Israeli policy than the middle class. The settlement issue is part of a broader topic that is indeed very relevant to these protests: the middle class has never been a sector that drives politics in a sectarian manner – and this is where it is vulnerable and short-changed compared to groups who have a much narrower view and loyalty, and frontload their sectarian interests before national considerations." …..

"A portrait of the settlement economy published in July by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development found that it is a drag on Israel’s per capita economic production. Relative to the rest of Israel, economic activity in the settlements is more focused on public administration, construction, and house ownership. At the same time, the settler economy has less manufacturing and business services and higher unemployment than the Israeli average.

In 2007, on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 war, the centrist Israeli media outlet Ynet news reported that the total economic cost of the occupation to date had reached $50 billion – or about a quarter of Israel's annual gross domestic product. However, estimates vary widely – in part because not all costs associated with the occupation are discretely identified in government reports."

News media economic correspondent Nehemia Shtrasler attacked another "holy cow," in an article entitled “It’s time to slash Israel's military budget," published in Haaretz

"The defence budget has increased greatly in recent years. It jumped from NIS 46 billion in 2006 to NIS 54 billion this year, and will go up to NIS 55.5 billion in 2012. This is the result of the Brodet Commission to examine the defence budget, which was formed after the Second Lebanon War." The army blamed defence budget cuts for its "under par performance in that war. However, the Winograd Committee, which investigated the war, ruled that the failure was totally unrelated to the size of the defence budget, but was instead the result of unprofessional leadership and an untrained army."

Shtrasler a strong advocate of a free market economy and once a supporter of Bibi Netanyahu's economic weltanschauung has backpedalled recently trying to adjust to the current national mood. He advises us not to trust the generals even Shaul Mofaz ‏(Kadima‏), chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee was once IDF chief of staff and later minister of defence. Now he is pressing for cuts in the defence budget. Mofaz is a contender for the Kadima party leadership so it's not surprising that Shtrasler sees the proposed budgetary cut as an opportunistic move.

"All of Barak’s talk about social sensitivity is only deception." Claims Shtrasler, "He is demanding an addition to his budget knowing very well that without a deep cut in defence it will be impossible to respond to even a small part of the tent protest."

This week too I intended writing about butter and not guns, but our enemies hadn’t forgotten us. I’m sure you know about the terrorist attack that took place today near Eilat.

As I conclude this letter the latest news update lists seven Israelis killed and over thirty wounded in the four pronged attack on two buses and two cars travelling close to the Egyptian border. The terrorist group was intercepted later, seven terrorists were killed. It seems that the terrorists crossed from Gaza into Sinai and attacked the vehicles further south near the Netafim border crossing.

Hamas denies responsibility for the attack and warned Israel of dire consequences if the IDF carries out any kind of retaliation. The immediate response disregarding the Hamas warning was a targeted assassination in

Rafah, Gaza of the operative group responsible for the attack near Eilat. Six members of the Popular Resistance Committees including two senior operatives .were killed in the retaliatory attack. There will be more to come.

Beni 18^th of August, 2011.

The boulevard people

The organisers of last Saturday night's cost of living demonstration were hard put to find a suitable venue for the mass assembly they had planned. Tel Aviv's Rabin Square is being renovated and none of the other squares in the city could contain the large turnout they expected.. Nevertheless, despite the constrictions the demonstrations held in Tel Aviv and other places exceeded their most optimistic expectations.

On Sunday morning the government knew that over 300,000 disgruntled people can't be ignored or dismissed by calling them anarchists, left-wing agitators or sushi eating layabouts.

Instead Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz expressed sympathy, understanding and promised efforts would be made to lower the cost of living, break up monopolies and initiate tax reform.

At the same time he stressed that changes would be limited by budgetary confines.

Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed a panel to examine the demonstrators' complaints. The investigating body headed by economist Professor Manuel Trachtenberg intends to meet with the demonstrators' representatives and aims to submit recommendations to the government next month.

At this juncture I want to insert a timeline so as to add a realistic perspective.

At first the prime minister called the panel a "round table" group of experts. In effect what he proposed was a board to investigate the complaints, He tried hard to avoid calling the Trachtenberg Panel a committee. Journalist Amnon Abramovich reminded his readers that parliamentary committees are quagmires. They are an effective delaying mechanisms designed to bury complaints embroiling petitioners in endless arguments over clauses and sub-clauses. If, contrary to all expectations, the committee concludes its work and makes recommendations, the government either ignores them or delays their implementation.

Yoel Esteron founder and publisher of Calcalist a business newspaper and media group owned by Yediot Ahronot gave the young and untried demonstration leadership some free advice " avoid falling into the trap Netanyahu's posse is setting for you (the negotiations over the protesters' demands.)”

If Professor Trachtenberg manages to table his panel's findings some time in September the timing will almost certainly coincide with the UN General Assembly's scheduled vote on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Some Middle East analysts argue that obtaining recognition without the possibility of realising a Palestinian State will frustrate the Palestinians and might lead to an outbreak of violence in the West Bank.

Of course no one is suggesting that Netanyahu's government is relying on a Palestinian insurrection to save it from the demands for a new social order.

However, it's reasonable to suppose that the possibility of a "Black September" scenario appears somewhere in the government's counter-demonstrators strategy.

Yoel Esteron says “Netanyahu is beginning to realise that his ad hoc remedies and committees won't bail him out – they'll just put off the inevitable. “

Esteron advises the prime minister to call a general election. Admittedly “going to the country” now might be political suicide, “But,” says Esteron” if he chooses to go to the polls, such an honest and courageous move might just land him back in office.” If Netanyahu calls for a general election early next year it might cool the protesters’ ardour. At the same time it could present an opportunity for genuine change. Political parties will be compelled to present explicit ‘social justice’ platforms and explain how they plan to implement them.”

A late addition to the time line is the international monetary crisis. Prime Minister Netanyahu has hinted that at a time when stock markets are unstable and the credit rating of the USA has been downgraded we can’t afford to finance the changes demanded by the protesters.

Our daughter Irit, a frequent visitor to the Rothschild Boulevard encampment, gave me a detailed account of the prevailing atmosphere. It agreed closely with the description given by Los Angeles Times correspondent Batsheva Sobelman, "Part Woodstock, part boot camp,

Tel Aviv's burgeoning protest encampment has become a small-scale experiment in a utopian society and a challenge to the established social order." Reminiscent of Ein Harod in the early 1920's.

The tenacity of the boulevard campers has been questioned and it too should appear as a factor in the timeline. They all aspire to rent or own a home but they are not homeless. Most of them are either living with their parents or living in unsuitable and expensive rented apartments. So camping out for the summer is not unreasonable. Most of them commute to jobs during the day and go home to shower and change their clothes before returning to the Boulevard. New encampments have sprouted up in other avenues in Tel Aviv and elsewhere.

Under the heading "Street Power" The Economist provided a similar description,

"Rothschild Boulevard, a pleasant, leafy thoroughfare that meanders through Tel Aviv, with offices and commodious flats on either side, has oddly become a colourful encampment, seething with talk of people-power and social revolution. The tent-dwellers are a mixed bunch with a preponderance of young, educated, middle-class families."

Two weeks ago critics called the protest a knee-jerk reaction without an agenda. I don't know if indeed they had a clear idea where they were heading then. The Economist described this week's attitude as more determined and pragmatic, "Their evolving list of demands, hammered out in days and nights of sweaty argument, includes calls for higher direct taxes for the rich, lower VAT for everyone, more hospital beds, free nursery-school, rent control and cheap home-building enforced by the state. It is a far cry from the dilution of the welfare state Mr Netanyahu believes in and has diligently carried out as prime minister in 1996-99 and again since 2009."

The Economist's concluding comment said they were, "Untainted by establishment politics. People are listening to them."

They know that alignment with any of the opposition parties will tend to fray the broad apolitical fabric they have woven. Likewise both Labour and Kadima realised that an apolitical popular protest was better off without their unwanted patronage.

I can't see how Netanyahu, Steinitz or the Trachtenberg Panel can possibly meet the demonstrators' demands without jettisoning their economic programme. The new social order demanded means a rearrangement of priorities.

In an article entitled “ A question of priorities,” Amnon Abramovich examines the choices that need to be made.

“The starting position of Israeli society is frightening. Only 55% of Israelis work, that is, every working person carries on his back one who doesn’t work. This situation was produced and is encouraged by our political establishment. Worse than that, the non-working Israel is growing and reproducing three times faster than the working Israel.

Instead of setting up yet another committee, the prime minister should have stood up and said: From now on, we shall follow one decree – ‘We were all born to work!’ It’s Jewish, it’s Biblical and it’s also social-democratic. The government should ensure that remuneration is fair. We should put an end to corporate tricks and set sane salaries for senior executives.

Furthermore, Netanyahu should declare the Negev, Galilee and poor neighbourhoods top priority regions.

Obviously we shouldn’t ignore the defence budget. Two years ago Defence Minister Ehud Barak set up a committee to examine the functioning of the army’s rehabilitation division. Its recommendations were not implemented. Had they been adopted and applied to the entire division, we could have saved billions of shekels, at least, in only one branch of the army.

When the defence budget is immune to cuts even at this time, it indicates that no changes will be made. Various reports have characterised the current budget as deceptive and manipulative. For example, look at the sixth submarine which the IDF is due to acquire from Germany. It costs about half a billion Euros, not including maintenance and operating costs. Most experts say we do not need a sixth submarine; there is no national security need for it. Nonetheless, we will buy it.”

However the Defence Ministry was quick to indicate its contribution to the social effort: An assortment of old ideas published regularly, such as relinquishing army bases and land which the army has no use for any more. The following day Barak asked the Knesset Defence and Foreign Affairs committee for an increase of $200 million in the defence budget.

Last week the daily Maariv featured an interview with former cabinet minister Haim Ramon, now a leading figure in the opposition Kadima Party, who noted that even as middle class Israelis make do with less, in the West Bank “the government subsidises housing, transportation, infrastructure.”

“The government gives per capita twice as much there as the national average,” Ramon said. “If the government had treated the rest of Israel the way it treats (the settlers) there wouldn’t have been a protest today.”

Ramon’s comments were among the first by a prominent politician to draw the link between the protests and one of the most divisive issues in Israeli politics. The battle pitting a dovish, secular left that advocates compromises with the Palestinians, against a nationalist-religious bloc trying to maintain a hold over parts the occupied West Bank.

Despite flattering macro-economic figures, with far stronger growth and lower unemployment than in most other developed countries, the wealth has failed to trickle down to the country’s heavily taxed and increasingly squeezed middle class.

Studies show that Israel — a once-egalitarian country that championed social safety nets, its leaders living frugally and its wealthy remaining discreet — has developed one of the highest income disparities in the developed world.

“In the end, it is political,” wrote journalist Yonatan Yavin in Yediot Ahronot. “It’s political that billions go to fund settlements and populations that do not contribute” — a euphemism for the ultra-Orthodox, where more than 40 percent of men spend years in religious study and do not work.

For decades, the Israeli government spent tens of billions of dollars to keep its military in the West Bank, build roads and subsidise housing and transportation costs, drawing 300,000 Jews to live there. The ultra-Orthodox community of 700,000 — almost a tenth of the country’s population — is a major beneficiary of Israel’s welfare system, with more than half of all ultra-Orthodox families living under the poverty line.

Addressing these problems won’t be easy. Half measure won’t satisfy the people in the boulevards.

Last week Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) Has called for changes in the coalition in order to meet the challenges presented by the protesters. When Yishai talks of social justice his priorities rest with his own constituents.

On Saturday I will be marching with protesters in Afula ( our local metropolis).

I decided it was about time I experienced the struggle myself.

Have a good weekend.

Beni 11^th of August, 2011.

The protests in Israel and Syria

The protests in Rothschild Boulevard

Normally Israel generates a disproportionate amount of news. In other words, it’s a small country where too much is happening. Consequently the international news media is disproportionately represented here. Furthermore, whenever our neighbours threaten us, or feel threatened by us, the foreign news media bureaus call in reinforcements to handle the reporting of the impending campaign/war. However, even during periods of relative quiet this hyperactive country manages to produce plenty to write home about. .

Therefore I was surprised to discover lately that most of the printed and electronic news networks had little or nothing to report about Israel.

Understandably, the US debt crisis, Europe's economic woes and trouble elsewhere including the Middle East, take precedence over our domestic unrest. However, when more than 150,000 Israelis flocked to the city squares to demonstrate on Saturday night most of the news bureaus deemed the phenomenon a non-event. .

For example the BBC reported a minor exchange of fire on the Lebanese border but ignored the wave of protests and demonstrations taking place all over Israel.

Maybe the foreign news bureaus are better geared to report battles than cottage cheese boycotts. It seems that until further notice we no longer interest the world.

Of late foreign correspondents stationed here are at a loss to explain why Israelis are discontented.

Whenever they ask government spokespersons to comment on the demonstrations and protest marches they are told our economy is more buoyant than ever. Government ministers from the prime minister himself down to the lowliest of ministers without portfolio and heads of ministerial bureaus insist that we've never had it so good! Even the irreproachable Stanley Fisher, President of the Bank of Israel, confirms that the country's economic standing is good. While the US totters on the brink of insolvency and the EU is battling to save its currency and the economic viability of its weaker member states, Israel is enjoying a boom.

Economic growth has increased and unemployment has reached an almost unprecedented low point.

Many Israelis are also finding it difficult to understand this contradiction.

If the state of the nation is so good why are thousands of people camping out in tent compounds all over Israel demanding affordable housing? Why are the doctors, students, dairy farmers, single parents and many others calling on the government to ease their economic burden? Why are they all demanding a new social order?

At this juncture permit me to briefly summarise the series of protests that are gaining momentum and maybe threatening the government's tenure.

The doctor's strike didn't really make much headway till the chairman of the Israeli Medical Association Dr. Leonid Edelman started his hunger strike and led a march to Jerusalem to protest by the prime minister's residence. This took place in tandem with all the other demonstrations and .benefited from good news media coverage.

The current spate of demonstrations started when an increase in the price of cottage cheese triggered a nationwide boycott of that product. It began with a Facebook call to consumers not to buy cottage cheese The response was surprisingly successful and ended when the retailers reduced the price.

Consumers organisations and other public bodies have often criticised the news media for ignoring the massive concentration of corporate power in the hands of a small group of Israeli business groups and families.

A parliamentary report on the concentration of corporate power published last year confirmed that too few people are controlling too many enterprises. It stated that 10 large business groups control 30% of the market value of public companies, while 16 control half the money in the entire country.

The Bank of Israel already says the country has one of the highest concentrations of corporate power in the developed world,far more than in most western economies. When Israel was admitted to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development its chairman urged the government to address the high level of corporate concentration in this country.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is an MIT economics graduate and a fervent advocate of unrestricted market economy. So far his efforts to privatise government owned companies haven't increased competition. Instead they have tended to accelerate the process of corporate concentration

One of the problems, according to the OECD, is that Israel's big business houses exert control through "cascading ownerships, pyramidal structures and cross-holdings".

In these pyramid structures holding companies control subsidiaries, which control their own subsidiaries, and so on until the top of the pyramid can technically control a company at the bottom with less than 10% of the capital.

Another parliamentary committee investigating the problem of corporate concentration is due to publish its findings in the coming weeks.

If the committee agrees with those assessments it could recommend breaking up the biggest oligopolies and opening Israel's market to new competition and investment, both foreign and local. Though nothing has been decided, change looks increasingly likely.

This ongoing public outcry is very much a spontaneous grass-roots phenomenon. Understandably the protesting groups are loath to accept a defined political identity. They are grateful for the moral support and encouragement they are receiving from various political bodies but clearly don’t want their struggle to have a political brand-name.

Here and there a few unruly demonstrators have been detained temporarily by the police, however there have been no clashes and no shots fired. By contrast the protests in Syria have met with a brutal government response.

If the motley array of Israeli protest groups failed to draw the attention of the foreign news media, other protests in our region haven't gone unnoticed. Syrian president Bashar al- Assad continues to ruthlessly crush every attempt to oppose his autocratic rule. This week when Syrian armoured units bombarded Hama, the country's fourth largest city, an editorial in the Washington Post expressed a certain déjà vu , " After all, Hama was the site of one of the most infamous massacres in the history of the Middle East — a 1982 assault ordered by Mr. Assad’s father that killed tens of thousands. Surely, the experts opined, the world has changed enough that the regime would not even attempt to repeat its extraordinary crime." In the 1982 massacre between 30,000 and 40,000.people were killed. So far more than 2,000 people have been killed in the current civil unrest in Syria. The editorial noted that, "Assad is calculating that those who suppose that dictators can no longer get away with massacres are wrong. He has some basis for that conclusion: NATO may have intervened in Libya to prevent the slaughter of civilians by Moammar Gaddafi, but Western leaders have publicly and vehemently ruled out intervention in Libya. The U.N. Security Council has failed to speak out against Mr. Assad’s assaults on other cities, as has the Arab League."

The Financial Times had nothing to write about Israel, however the attack on Hama received some attention. “The international community must do more to stem Mr Assad’s savagery. True, military action along the lines deployed against Muammer Gaddafi is not an option. Russia and China consider that the intervention in Libya exceeded the mandate granted by United Nations resolution 1973, and will not allow a similar motion on Syria to pass the Security Council. But there are other, non-military steps that the international community can, and should, take.

The first is to increase diplomatic pressure on Damascus. That means challenging Mr Assad’s delusional narrative that the violence is the work of foreign-sponsored ‘armed groups’.

Robust condemnation from the UN Security Council would also help. Both moves would make the international climate more conducive to broadening and toughening economic sanctions on the regime. Capital flight and the collapse in government revenues – particularly from tourism – caused by the four-month-old popular uprising have left Mr Assad and his cronies desperately short of cash. The European Union’s move on Monday to expand its asset freeze and travel restrictions on Syrian government officials is welcome.”

Thomas L. Friedman also preferred tackling Assad’s brutality to mentioning our bloodless orderly demonstrations. In 1982 Friedman was a NYT correspondent in Beirut and managed to visit Hama shortly after the massacre ordered by Hafez al-Assad. He wrote, “This was an act of unprecedented brutality, a settling of scores between Assad’s minority Alawite regime and Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority that had dared to challenge him.

Hama Rules were the prevailing leadership rules in the Arab world. They said: Rule by fear — strike fear in the heart of your people by letting them know that you play by no rules at all, so they won’t ever, ever, ever think about rebelling against you.” Today Friedman thinks Bashar al-Assad won’t be able to crush the current uprising.

Have a good weekend

Beni 4th of August, 2011