Israel's other war - the class war

What evidence is there as to whether Jewish workers are any happier in capitalist Israel than they are in capitalist Britain or America? Israel prioritises military and business spending. As a result vital services are no longer provided or only available privately at high cost, unaffordable for growing numbers, Jews as well as Arabs.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have marched in the coastal city of Tel Aviv to protest against rising housing prices and social inequalities. Demonstrators from all over Israel rallied in support of hundreds of people who have set up protest camps against the government's economic and social policies. The movement has gathered steam in recent days with protesters pitching tent camps across the country, including in Jerusalem, Beer Sheva and Ashdod.Public disgruntlement is growing, fuelled by almost-daily revelations of social inequality, injustice and corruption.

"This is just the beginning. The struggle continues," said Haim Nahon, married with two children, pointing to his makeshift home, one of 30 tents set up on a strip of grass at the foot of the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. He said that his income as a graduate in special education and tour guide did not allow him to keep up with spiralling rents, let alone dream of owning his own home.

"We are with you," called the driver of a tram passing close to the Jerusalem tent-dwellers.

"Today, it takes on average about one million shekels ($295,000 or 200,000 euros) to buy an apartment in Israel," Eli Melloul, a property agent, told the AFP news agency. "In one year, the average purchase price of housing has jumped 32 per cent in Tel Aviv, and 17 per cent in Jerusalem."

Rents are high too, with a family apartment easily reaching 5,000 shekels a month -- more than the minimum wage.

About 150,000 properties, very often owned by Jews living overseas, stand empty for most of the time.

1.77 million Israelis are poor. About 850,000 children live in poverty. As a result, 75% of those affected miss meals, a 21% increase from 2009. Moreover, 83% of poor children lack proper dental care. According to Central Bureau of Statistics data, the percent of poor households headed by a wage earner rose from 43% in 1997 to nearly 58% in December 2009. Employed Israelis work more weekly hours than counterparts in most other OECD countries, while "the country's average standard of living is lower" by comparison. Through the 1950s and 1960s, union membership was 70%. It's now from 25 - 30% and declining.

And the other settlement question

Nearly half of the entire Bedouin population in the Negev – approximately 80,000 people – lives in 45 Bedouin villages that are unrecognized by the Israeli government. Despite being Israeli citizens, the state views the Bedouin residents of these villages as illegal squatters and does not provide them with basic services or infrastructure, including electricity, water, sewage systems, roads, schools or hospitals. 300 Bedouin residents of the unrecognized village of al-Araqib have seen their rights trampled in order to make way for a forest sponsored by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The village has been completely demolished nearly two dozen times, including the most recent demolition on June 21, and JNF bulldozers work the villagers' lands each day in preparation for planting.And so while Israel promotes Jewish residential and forestation projects, every Bedouin community in the Negev – whether recognized or unrecognized – struggles to meet the basic needs of its residents, all of whom are citizens of the state. "...They say that we are illegal, but then they will build 20 houses for Jews and call it a recognized village. Why do they recognize 20 houses, but not 5,000 people? You can't recognize us? Give us water, electricity, and streets?" asks Ibrahim al-Atrash

The extremely difficult conditions prevalent in unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev is being used as an excuse to promote the urbanisation of the Bedouin population. This effort comes despite the fact that the Bedouins have lived on their lands (considered state lands by the Israeli government) for generations. "The court took for granted that these people are land squatters when in fact, they are not. This is very, very problematic," explained Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which represented the villagers in their appeal to the Supreme Court. "It does not take into consideration that the Bedouins are living on their own lands, many of them before 1948, and many of them were moved onto the lands that they are living on now by an order by the Israeli military commander."

Prior to and during the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, approximately 85 percent of the Bedouin population in the Negev was expelled from their lands to surrounding territories, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan and Egypt. Of the original 95 Bedouin tribes that inhabited the area, only 19 remained. According to Ismael Abu Saad, the founder of the Bedouin Studies Center at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, after Israeli military rule was imposed on the entire Palestinian population that remained in the territory now known as Israel, the Bedouins of the Negev were deprived of the ability to travel with their herds and cultivate their lands. In addition, 12 of the 19 remaining tribes were forcibly displaced from their lands and confined to a restricted area in the northeastern Negev, which they could only leave with a special permit. Known as the Siyag, this area covered only ten percent of the land the Bedouins controlled prior to 1948, and was known for its low fertility.

"These restrictions represented a form of forced sedentarization, which virtually ended their traditional way of life," Abu Saad wrote. As most of the Bedouins of the Negev were forced into the Siyag and were therefore not occupying their original lands, they lost ownership claims to land that they had used for generations.

After Israel had expropriated 93 percent of the lands in the Negev for Jewish settlement, the state's next priority was the forced urbanisation of the Bedouins. "We should transform the Bedouins into an urban proletariat–in industry, services, construction and agriculture. 88 percent of the Israeli populations are not farmers, let the Bedouins be like them," stated Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan in 1963."...the Bedouin would not live on his land with his herds, but would become an urban person who comes home in the afternoon and puts his slippers on..."

Socialists never supported Zionism but opposed it as yet another nationalist delusion. Socialists and Zionists have been opponents since the beginning. The establishment of Israel did not end anti-semitism. In fact it caused it to spread. Zionists are always protesting about anti-semitism, real or imaginary. They use such complaints to de-legitimise criticism of Zionism and Israel. The Zionist needs anti-semitism like junkies need their fix. Thoughtful Israelis, however, are now wondering just how much of the anti-semitism in the world today is generated by Israel itself through its mistreatment of Palestinians and of its own Arab-Israeli citizens. It seems a little naive to ask why Israel's ruling elite don't realise that by their own actions they are generating anti-semitism. They do realise. But they make it a point not to give a damn what the world thinks of them. Their version of apartheid remains and prevails.

In the insane world of globo-politics the real winners are never the oppressed or their alleged champions, but the powerful. The Socialist Party re-affirms that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. To escape the vicious circle, we must respond to ethnic persecution not by promoting "our own" brand of nationalist or religious politics, but by asserting our identity as human beings and citizens of the future world cooperative commonwealth.