The social justice movement that swept the country over the summer will hit the
streets again this Saturday for the first time in nearly two months, with
protest leader Daphni Leef vowing Tuesday that she will “fight with all of her
might” for a better future.
“If there’s one thing that swinish capitalism
has taught me is that if you want something, you fight for it with all of your
might. And I want a future, that’s what I want... and I want every other person
in this country to have a future,” Leef said, directing her comments to Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
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Social protest leaders slam approval of Trajtenberg reportAt the press conference at Rabin Square in
Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Leef began by saying “I hate press conferences, they aren’t
part of my nature as a human being, but this is how they hear us in the
Knesset.”
Throughout her remarks, Leef seemed borderline agitated, and
criticized not only Netanyahu, but also the media, for what she described as a
misrepresentation of the social justice movement that began after Leef pitched a
tent on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard on July 14 to protest soaring housing
prices.
“For the past four months we’ve been fighting a war of attrition.
And it works sometimes; look at me I’m a tired woman. Bibi, [Netanyahu] you are
looking at a tired woman, but more than anything else, I am a determined
woman.”
Saturday’s protests will be held in cities across the country,
and the central march will set out from Rothschild Boulevard and make its way to
Rabin Square at 9 p.m. Saturday’s protests will be the first major demonstration
held by the movement since the “March of the Million” on September 3, which saw
an estimated 400,000 people take to the streets in protests across
Israel.
The subsequent release of the findings of the Trajtenberg
Committee on Socioeconomic Issues was met with disapproval by the social justice
movement, who said it did not go far enough in affecting change. According to
Leef, since the protests hit their peak on September 3, the movement has
received little if any response from the government.
“For two months
there hasn’t been a protest. For two months we have tried to speak to
politicians who sit in the Knesset... two months after the largest public
protest ever held in Israel, and I feel that they are always tying to besmirch
or dismiss this protest and I don’t understand why I’m in a war for survival
against elected officials.”
Leef also criticized Netanyahu for what she
described as his self-centered approach to the daily issues in
Israel.
“You brought [captured IDF soldier] Gilad Schalit back home and
the first word you said was ‘I’ as though you are the basis of everything, but
you aren’t, the seven million people of Israel are.”
Leef was also joined
at the press conference by Holocaust survivor Ruth Krieger, who spoke of her
economic hardships.
“My entire family, all of them are gone. My father
was killed and here I don’t receive anything.” Krieger added “I know
survivors who live without water or electricity and no one helps them. I am
asking for help, a little help.”
Also at the press conference was
15-year-old May Turgeman, who spoke of overcrowded classrooms and what he said
is the need for greater investment in education.
“I am tired of the fact
that [teachers] ignore us, that we go to huge classrooms, and I get lost among
40 other students, and when I ask for help, no one is there to help
me.
“On October 29, we young people need to take to the streets and
demand a new national budget, and the social justice we deserve.”