BICOM

Leaders of the housing protests in Israel are hoping that record numbers will attend planned rallies across Israel this weekend. The rallies are to take place under the slogan ‘the government has abandoned the people’. This will be the third consecutive weekend of mass protests. 150,000 people took part in a demonstration in Tel Aviv last week. Marchers intend this week to demonstrate outside the Kirya compound in Tel Aviv – the location of Israel’s Defense Ministry. Rallies will also take place in Jerusalem, the Galilee and elsewhere.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, this week criticised what he referred to as a ‘wave of populism’ that is sweeping Israel. Speaking in the Knesset, Netanyahu said that there were legitimate social problems that demanded attention. But he declared that the Israeli economy was ‘not in crisis’ and stressed that any solution must preserve the ‘free and dynamic’ nature of the Israeli economy. Netanyahu added that the breaking up of cartels and monopolies must be the first step in reforming the Israeli economy.