Settlers a familiar source of conflict in Israel's summer of discontent

[Violet_Crumble]

TEL AVIV, Israel -- The vast protest movement that's swept Israel in recent weeks over everything from high housing costs to the availability of heath care is set to culminate Saturday in what organizers are hoping will be the largest demonstration yet: a nationwide march over high rents that they vow will eclipse the 150,000 demonstrators who gathered last week.

But the variety of the causes is leading to divisions among the demonstrators, who've turned tony Rothschild Boulevard in Israel's largest city into a vast tent city.

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The announcement that settlement groups were supporting the protests was followed by petitions by dozens of Israeli lawmakers for the country to solve its housing crisis by accelerating building in the settlements.

The move angered many of the protesters, who said the right-wing groups had "missed the point entirely."

"We already spend too much on the settlements and all the soldiers that have to defend them. We want the government to change its priorities so that the average person - not the settler - is the focus of the budget," said Avner Cohen, a 22-year-old student.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/05/2346808/settlers-a-familiar-source-of.html#ixzz1UEVVOH2F

[ellenrr]

1. The protest movement avoids mentioning the "o" word - occupation,

which is the root of Israel's economic woes:
According to the Adva Center, a research institute,
Israel spends twice as much on a settlement resident as it spends on
other Israelis.

Much of the lack of affordable housing in Israeli cities can
be traced back to the 1990s, when the availability of public housing
in Israel was severely curtailed while subsidies in the settlements
increased, driving many lower-middle-class and working-class Israelis
into the West Bank and Gaza Strip — along with many new immigrants.


Israel will never become the progressive social democracy the
protesters envision until it sheds the moral stain and economic burden
of the occupation.



from NYTimes: http://tinyurl.com/3kt7qxw