Strike Over Housing in Israel

Whle housing is tight in the Bronx NY, squatters are grabbing building.  We heard there was a theft of an air conditioner and some metal parts from the old Per Scholas factory site at 1575 River Street, Bronx NY.  Now there is some action in Israel on the other side of the world.

The mass strike that began with a housing


protest, is spreading and expanding throughout Israel to include

all sorts of economic sectors, all protesting the collapse of

their living standards in radical free-market paradise of Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.



On Thursday thousands of Israelis took part in "stroller

marches" by parents with their children in 16 locations across

the country, including Tel Aviv, to protest the high cost of

raising a family. A similar march will be held in Jerusalem on

Sunday.


"The country has breached its contract with the citizens,

and has betrayed us," The Israeli daily {Ha'aretz} quotes a

mother who took part in one of the protests. "People thought that

if they work hard, pay taxes, and have children everything will

be alright." "Parents have in fact a second mortgage," said Anat

Rozilio, one of the organizers. "Besides the burden of the rent,

once you have a child up to three years old, there is no place

besides daycare centers, which cost 3,000 shekels a month." She

added, "I have spoken with many mothers who told me 'one child is

enough, I can't live in poverty.'"


The Israeli Council for the Welfare of the Child said it

supports the struggle, as "raising children has become an

intolerable financial burden."


On Friday, hundreds demonstrated in Tel Aviv protesting

escalating fuel prices.  Meanwhile, the doctors' strike led by Israel Medical

Association chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman intends to present Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a petition with tens of

thousands of signatures calling on him to "save public medicine."

The doctors set up a protest tent camp outside Netanyahu's

office, where Eidelman, who has been on a hunger strike since

Monday, and a number of other doctors, plan to remain until the

strike is settled.


President Shimon Peres has intervened in the situation,

holding a telephone discussion with Eidelman, where he asked him

to end his hunger strike. "An entire country is watching you, you

have proved your leadership and courage. You are bearing an

important message of advancing and improving public medicine in

Israel on your shoulders, and as President I am asking you to

look after your health and strength. You are dear to us," Peres

told Eidelman, who said thanks, but that he was continuing his

hunger strike.


Trainee clinical psychologists joined the tent camp in Tel

Aviv on Thursday to protest against the desperate situation

facing the country's clinical psychologists, who say the state is

trying to destroy the public mental health service as part of its

privatization drive.


Since the mass base of the Likud is the lower 80% of the

population, calls from Likud activists demanding he do something

have increased. One activist, Yanai Braz, is demanding that

Netanyahu dump his Finance Minister and political ally Yuval

Steinitz. "Bibi and Steinitz are detached from the people. They

don't understand what the middle class is going through. Rich

people have the stock exchange and capital market. The middle

class have nothing.... I want the Finance Minister replaced."