Israel protests show nation's beating heart

[bemildred]

Amos Oz

Israel has never been an egalitarian state. But in its heyday, it was more egalitarian than most states in the world. The poverty wasn't acute and the wealth wasn't ostentatious, and social responsibility toward the poor and needy was shown not only on the economic level but on the emotional level too.

In the earlier Israel, those who worked — and almost all the women and men worked very hard — could make a modest but respectable living for themselves and their families. The new immigrants, the refugees, the immigrant camp dwellers all received public education, health services and housing. Young, poor Israel was a master social-entrepreneur.

But all that has been destroyed in the past 30 years, as a succession of Israeli governments encouraged and inflamed the economic jungle laws of grab as grab can.

Many Israelis are now saying they've had enough. Last month, thousands of people took to the streets to protest soaring housing prices, setting up a tent encampment along upscale Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. And their dissatisfaction has proved infectious. Parents have rallied against the high cost of child care; doctors have marched to protest hospital overcrowding.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-oz-israel-tents-protests-20110809,0,3113566.story