Israelis build Tel Aviv tent town to protest high rents

The Israeli government is under heat now also from citizens who are normally indifferent to its immoral conduct. After a successful boycott of cottage cheese that forced the producer to put down the prices, hundreds of Israelis are now taking to the streets in protest of lack of affordable housing, building a tent town on Tel Aviv’s fashionable Rothschild Boulevard. Rents in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and most other large cities are so high that even people with average salaries cannot afford them. For example, a three-room apartment in central Tel Aviv is around 7,000 NIS (about $2,000). The average salary in Israel is 8,698 NIS, and minimum wage in Israel is 4,100 NIS.

MK Miri Regev of the rulling Likud Party came to the camping site to show solidarity, but she was chased out by the booing crowd who also threw water at her, as can be seen in this video. Regev in response said: These are extreme leftist people. They have dreadlocks and they smell from alcohol.

PM Netanyahu, who is a neo-liberal who was educated in MIT, has a stance against government intervention in the housing market.

The protesters are planning to stay in the tents until the government will announce a serious plan for affordable housing for average Israelis.

Nirit Ben-Ari for New Jewish Resistance, July 16

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  1. Bibi “losing control”?
    From Daily Kos, July 26:

    Protests in Israel broadened in scope today as protest leaders rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s plan to solve the housing crisis, with groups across the country chanting “Bibi go home” and “we want justice.”

    The protests, which have centered around skyrocketing housing costs, and which gained momentum after Saturday’s 30,000-strong rally, appeared today to be spreading to other interest groups, including those angry about recently-passed, anti-democratic laws.

    We have noted those anti-democratic laws, and we hope the Israeli working class will start making the connection between its own oppression and the greater oppression of the Palestinians…

    927mag reports that among the 30,000 who marched on July 23, many chanted “revolution,” and hundreds blocked the streets and clashed with police. A popular slogan was “Mubarak, Assad, Netanyahu.” Another hopeful sign of the Arab Spring spreading to Israel…