Imagine if the anti-establishment fervor that followedthe 2008 economic collapse produced a political movement that was essentiallyprogressive rather than reactionary.
The fury that swept the country might have beendirected at the people who caused the collapse and the people who did nothingto mitigate its effects.
But, for a number of reasons, including the failure ofDemocrats to steer popular anger where it belonged, popular rage was harnessedby the Tea Party movement, a creation of the far right and ultimately part ofthe Republican Party.
It's hard to blame Republicans for exploiting anti-establishmentrage and it is impossible not to blame Democrats for letting them get away withit.
That it might have beendifferent can be seen in Israel today, where an unprecedented popular revoltagainst what FDR called "economic royalism" is shaking the political andeconomic establishment to its core.
The revolt began on July 14,which, in the style of the Arab Spring, led to it being called 7.14. And alsoin the Arab Spring tradition, this uprising started on Facebook. A 25-year-oldnamed Daphne Leef wrote of the impossibility of finding an apartment she couldafford in Tel Aviv and then followed up by erecting and moving into a tent.
Suddenly "tent cities" sprungup throughout the country, with protesters not only railing against the highcost of living but against the massive shift of wealth from the middle class tothe ultra-wealthy. Israelis took to the streets to protest deteriorating healthcare, a mediocre (at best) public school system, and what can only be describedas the wholesale collapse of the public sector in favor of unregulated "free"enterprise.
Israel, created bysocialists, was, until relatively recently, a fairly egalitarian country -- morelike Europe than the United States. But that changed with the rise of the rightand particularly of Binyamin Netanyahu, who has succeeded in his goal ofimplementing Milton Friedman-style economic policies.
Everyone who is not rich ishurting, which is why the protest movement is growing. Demonstrators includeJews and Arabs, the secular and religious, and Sephardim and Ashkenazim. Even someelderly Holocaust survivors are in the streets -- not surprising given that overa quarter arenow living in poverty. That last point is especially jarring. Imagine theJewish state cutting benefits to Auschwitz survivors while providing economicincentives to billionaires.
On Saturday night, 150,000demonstrators, out of a population of seven million, took to the streets -- thelargest demonstration in Israel's history not related to the war/peace issue.
According to the respected Israeli blog +972:
Themain rallying cry was still: "The people! Want! Social justice!" with agenerous dose of "Bibi go home," as well as anti-capitalism, pro-welfare stateslogans, all laced with dripping sarcasm along the lines of: "The market isfree, but we're slaves."
The New York Times characterized the protest movement like this:
Whatstarted as a modest Facebook-driven protest by young people over housing priceshas mushroomed into what many analysts suspect could be one of the moresignificant political developments here in years -- and a possible opening forthe defeated left.
The Times misses the point. The revolt against Israel's "I want mine"capitalism is emanating not only from the left but from across the politicalspectrum and even from those who don't care about politics one way or another.
After all, one does not haveto be of the left to recognize when you are being screwed, and by whom. Besides,Israelis understand that as bad as Netanyahu's Likud party is, the formerlysocialist Labor Party has also long been dominated by politicians (like EhudBarak) who are indifferent to the problems of working people or the jobless anddevote their lives to personal aggrandizement, financial and otherwise.
The missing piece in the 7.14movement (so far) is the absence of the issue of the occupation. Not only isthe denial of Palestinian rights thoroughly illegal and immoral, it alsocontributes mightily to inequality in Israel itself.
All those millions beingwasted on settlements and settlement infrastructure should be used at home. Allthat money wasted on a "university" in Ariel could be spent on schools in TelAviv or Haifa. Moreover, the absence of peace costs billions in militaryexpenditures -- expenditures that would be significantly reduced if the Israeligovernment achieved peace with the Palestinians.
But the 7.14 movement shouldnot be criticized for not addressing everything at once. Just getting Israelisin the street again, protesting the Netanyahu government's domestic agenda, is animportant step. And the good news is that revolutions are not easily contained.Who knows where this energy will next be channeled?
Unfortunately, it's likelythat Netanyahu will look for a foreign policy crisis to end the revolt against himand his millionaire allies. He is already planning a fear campaign against thePalestinian effort to achieve recognition by the United Nations as an attentiondeflector. He knows that pointing to an external enemy has almost always succeededin squashing movements for social justice. But maybe not this time.
Israelis deserve credit forrecognizing that, despite the jingoism of Netanyahu and company, it is not thePalestinians who are robbing them blind. It is a greedy segment of their ownpopulation and the politicians who serve them.
The only difference betweenthe situation in Israel and here in the United States is that Israelis seem tobe waking up. Perhaps someday it will happen here.