“Let us highly resolve to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small.”

(US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his “New Deal” speech, 1932).

We are now seeing an exceptional phenomenon in Israeli history. Thousands of people, tens of thousands, have committed themselves to a struggle over the State of Israel’s social and civic image. An entire class, the middle class, is in motion. Following are a number of news items from the past few days: hundreds of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood and blocked roads; roads were blocked in Haifa and a joint protest was held by the doctors and representatives of the housing protest; hundreds of tents have been pitched on one of the most affluent boulevards in Tel Aviv; a parliamentary uprising has been staged against tycoons who aren’t willing to pay their debt to the public; thousands of parents are about to go on a protest march with baby strollers in protest against the high prices of child-care equipment; calls have been aired for a general strike next week.

What Do They Want?

That is the question that has hovered around the edges of the news reports ever since the press conference that was held by the prime minister and the finance minister. That is an excellent question, and it is a question that has to be answered. Fortunately, there is no lack of an answer. Anyone who wants it only needs to go roaming among the tents in Kiryat Shmona, Beer Sheva, Dimona and Rothschild Boulevard. He will hear

there about young couples who work hard and still cannot make ends meet. He will look into the face of the chairman of the Israel Medical Association, who is marching to Jerusalem. Anyone who asks what they want will ask himself why this phenomenon hasn’t died out until now and how is it possible that 87% of the Israeli public supports the powerful protest that is continuing to spread.

The answer has already been presented to us. It is completely clear. It has been hovering in the special air of the protest. This isn’t a housing protest. This isn’t a crisis in the healthcare system and nor is it a consumers’ uprising. It is all that together. The sum total of the injustices has come together to form a collective demand. It isn’t explicitly stated as such, and it might never be cast formally in these terms. But connecting of all the events that have been haunting us, one after the next, leads us to a single clear conclusion. The Israelis are demanding a New Deal now. A new contract in Israeli society.  A new division. They are saying: the current exploitative contract is over. The plundering of the State of Israel ends now. The unbridled greed will be reined in and

Israel will be returned to its owners. Its owners are its citizens. “They” are not merely consumers, university students, young couples, middle class folks, doctors, the homeless. It is all of them together. They are saying: a solution is required that will prevent excessively high prices and will create a truly competitive and free market. A situation must be reached in which wages are commensurate with the cost of living in the State of Israel. The housing market needs to change in a way that will allow for a reduction in rental and owner costs. Even more than that: the public systems in

Israel, the healthcare system and the education system, have to be rehabilitated. The fruits of economic growth must no longer be given to a select few to enjoy. A new order will be created in Israeli society, a New Deal.

The Old and Forgotten Contract

For our parents and grandparents, the social compact was as follows: this is a country that is surrounded by enemies, and life here involves coping with difficult situations. That said, this is a country that has a free market in which the middle class can live a life of dignity in a democracy that allows for the decision-makers to be replaced. Its greatest advantage is its social solidarity, with firmly stable public healthcare and education systems. We, the state, will levy high taxes, but in exchange we will provide a tightly knit safety net. If you study hard and work hard, you’ll be able to succeed.

That agreement was violated. It no longer exists. The new compact of exploitation is as follows: you will work very hard, you will earn relatively little and will pay exorbitant prices. The country will levy high taxes from you as if this were a welfare state, but in practice it will force you to pay enormous healthcare and education costs. The politicians will not serve you but, rather, the sectors that maintain their coalition government and the oligarchs who have their ear. The combination of your hard work and the noncompetitive market will turn Israel into a plantation of orchards. The fruits will be enjoyed by a very small group of Israelis. You, the member of the Israeli middle class, will be enslaved.

The New Deal

Following is a summary in brief of the demands being made by the protesters across Israel and from all walks of Israeli life. Together they are forming an Israeli alliance that is different from the one that exists today.

The overburdened and neglected public systems will be rehabilitated. Enormous funds will be dedicated to education, healthcare and infrastructure. A real plan will be presented to regulate public transportation in the greater Tel Aviv area, including a subway or a light rail system. Not only will the doctors’ strike be concluded with an agreement that grants them dignified wages, but more beds will be added to the hospitals. An effective action plan will be presented to increase competitiveness in the Israeli market, that will include careful regulatory supervision over the monopolies, cartels and oligopols. Government policy will remove obstacles standing in the way of price reductions and will create new incentives for opening the shrinking and controlled Israeli markets. Responsibility in the Israeli capital market will be increased dramatically so as to prevent banks from continuing to finance with our money tycoons who are not prepared to dip into their own pockets. The government will raise minimum wage in a manner that is commensurate with the growth in the Israeli economy and the rise in the cost of living. Rents will be controlled by legal restrictions and will be supervised. If that can be done in New York then it can be done in Tel Aviv, and no landlord is going to flee from Israel in a panic. The government will not make do with removing obstacles in the housing market and providing contractors with incentives; rather, it will intervene directly in this market if it fails to cool down in a way that will create affordable housing. Tax reforms will be introduced that allow lower taxes on work-related income and higher taxes on capital. Increased participation in the job market will be prioritized. In practical terms, all this can be summed up in two dramatic words that are at the foundation of this protest: changed priorities.

Will things be presented that way? There is no way of knowing. Will the protests unite into a coherent and orderly collective demand? Probably not. But the demand for a new contract between the government, the citizens and the economy exists even if it is not formally being declared. It is plainly visible in the streets. This is not merely an economic or a social contract, but an ethical contract as well. Concealed behind the yearning for a New Deal is the aspiration to restore the traditional Israeli values to our lives.

The Return of Values

Old and new placards hang from the trees in the humid nights in the protest camp. The nicest placard is hung at the southern end of the camp, near the corner of Rothschild Boulevard and Nahmani Street. It is the most revolutionary and Jewish slogan out there. The slogan outlaws exploitation, cartels, monopolies, price rigging, humiliating rental contracts and ludicrous mortgage contracts. This slogan is not willing to tolerate any exploitation of the middle class, and it is not willing to tolerant of any form of exploitation. On a large piece of cloth that has been pulled taut along the trees, it hangs among the tents and warns the passers-by: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Change

No one knows how this wave of protest is going to end, but its importance lies in its very existence. Exciting ideas are springing forth from within Israeli society, and they are exciting precisely because they are extraordinarily old. For years special interest groups have been working to tamper with the Israeli genetic code. In recent years the impression received was that they had managed to annihilate the essences that existed in the generation that founded Israel. Along came this protest and proved that beneath the veneer of flesh we have taken upon ourselves, behind the steel doors and stone walls of indifference, the old ideas of justice and partnership still exist. We are not the offspring of either cowards or embittered conservatives; the Israelis are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of revolutionaries who built an exemplary society in the Land of Israel. This protest is important because it reminds us of who we are and whom we might yet become