tents

August 8th, 2011

How would the Arab Spring  affect the “only democracy in the Middle East”, Israel?  For three weeks now, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets, first driven by cottage cheese, then by expensive housing, and now by the inequity of markets, and they are living in tents until they see change.  Is this any different from Tunisia, or Egypt, Bahrain or others?  Of course it’s different: each country’s popular uprisings are motivated by unique goals and unique circumstances.  But it’s different for another important reason: Israel’s status as a free democracy, a politically liberal partner of the U.S. in a sea of autocracy.  This time it’s a country that systematically should support its middle class, at least in the eyes of a capitalist, yet has failed to do so.  They’ve swayed from what once looked more like a European proto-socialist nation to an aspiring free-market proto-America.  And now Israelis lash back.  The middle class.  The “regular folk”.  They didn’t reach the level of desperation that many in Egypt had reached.  Yet they’ve undertaken one of the biggest uprisings in their country’s albeit short history.  What would it take to motivate ordinary Americans to do the same?  At what point does the free market cut so deeply into our civil rights that we feel inspired to lash back, and use our civil liberties to push for change?  We breathe the air of democracy and live it every day to the point where we’ve been lulled into a feeling of trust for our system to provide for us in the end.  That lethargic faith might ultimately prove worse for our condition than the desperation that many in Egypt  feel.  Israelis are standing up and demanding more equitable distribution of services, and we can do the same.