The differences between Israeli and American protest movements are becoming more defined.
The Israeli protesters designated a Committee of Experts formed by left wing academics to formulate their demands: there were left wing professors of urban planning in charge of formulating policies to reduce the price of apartments, professors of social work on how to improve the fate of the poor, etc. The Government designed a counter-Committee of Experts formed by not less notorious academics led by Prof. Trajtenberg. The dialogue was between this group of professors with the Government professors. The students did not melt into the general protest movement but negotiated through their organizations (pic: Itzik Schmooly, head of the National Student Union, and Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg). Netaniyahu promised to implement Trajtenberg Committee's final report. There were media events, Trajtenberg went to the Rothschild street encampment to talk to the protesters, etc. The food companies feared the boycott of their products and reduced prices, the corporations started to dismantle and reduce profile, and apartment prices started to stabilize as the Government promised to change the rules. The Israeli protest adopted from the very beginning a coherent goal-directed form, and designed a purely academic leadership.
On the other hand, the Occupy Wall Street movement emphasizes direct action and leaderless, consensus-based decision-making, most clearly embodied by its General Assembly, in which participants in the protest make group decisions both large and small, like adopting principles of solidarity and deciding how best to stay warm at night. They oppose the emergence of any form of formal leadership because "you cannot create freedom through a tight cadre of revolutionaries".
I never heard of a leaderless movement to achieve anything. Its fate is that of the Children's Cruzade.
7 comments:
It's all relative. The Israeli protest has also been criticized for not having a "coherent goal-directed form".
The Boycott of the cottage cheese of Tnuva was very focused. And it succeeded: prices went down (really!)and the general manageress was sacked as insensitive bitch.
Tnuva, yes.
Students, yes.
Rothschild/housing prices, not so much.
But they are still better than those OWS goofs. I'm sure the HBDChick can come up with some theories on why the American protest finds it more natural to stay anarchic and leaderless.
Because American protest has been captured by street artists (they dont deserve to be called schnorrers, they are beggars asking for coins in the streets). Confusedly they hate the rich and bankers, but they have nothing to offer instead.
Regarding housing prices in Israel, expectations have cooled down and prices stopped rising.
I dont believe the Occupy Wall Street people cannot organize itself because they are genetically unrelated (the chick's thesis). Israelis are an even more mixed multitude than Americans. But in Rothschild a social phenomenon ocurred: People encampments formed "neighborhoods" of similar backgrounds, the theater people in one block of Rothschild, the social workers in another, the Moroccan neighborhoods in the lower Rothshild Str. Like in the Bible, they went into battle in their own tribes.
The fact that Jewish populations in Israel come from numerous far apart places does not change the fact that most Jewish communities (except for Falashas, Bene Israel) demonstrate little genetic distance from each other. The Ashkenazim are slightly genetically closer to some groups of Jews (Greek and Turkish Jews) than to some groups of Southern Europeans (Northen Italians and French) in the study by Atzmon et al. published in AJHG in 2010. The Ashkenazim are roughly equidistant genetically between those same two Southern European populations and Jews from Italy and Syria. All of those Jewish populations demonstrate some European admixture. Ashkenazim are slightly more genetically distant from Iraqi and Irani Jews and Palestinians.
"The Ashkenazim are roughly equidistant genetically between those same two Southern European populations and Jews from Italy and Syria."
I meant to write "same two non-Jewish Southern European populations."
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