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Social Movement Studies: Journal of

Social, Cultural and Political Protest
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Occupy Israel: A Tale of Startling

Success and Hopeful Failure
Eitan Y. Alimi

Department of Political Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem,

Israel
Version of record first published: 01 Aug 2012.

To cite this article: Eitan Y. Alimi (2012): Occupy Israel: A Tale of Startling Success and Hopeful
Failure, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest, 11:3-4, 402-407
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Social Movement Studies,

Vol. 11, Nos. 3 4, 402407, August November 2012

Occupy Israel: A Tale of Startling Success

and Hopeful Failure
EITAN Y. ALIMI

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Department of Political Science, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

ABSTRACT In between the Arab Spring and the US Occupy movement, Israel has had its share in
demonstrating the peoples power against unjust authority in general and socioeconomic wrongs in
particular. This paper analyzes the context, rapid growth and yet swift abatement of the Israeli
protest-tent summer of 2011. I argue that the reasons for the shortly lived Israeli protest summer
related more to difficulties in coping with intra-movement challenges, framing alignment and a
relatively closed political environment, and less to the omnipresent security complex and
militarized political culture, which has repeatedly been suppressing other episodes in Israels history.
KEY WORDS : Protest, encampments, security threat, framing, political opportunity

As we again witness sporadic attempts to mobilize Israelis to retake the streets and to
pressure the government to adopt a more humane economic policy, we are reminded of the
unprecedented wave of protest that swept Israel last summer, called the protest-tent.
Beginning on 14 July 2011, thousands of Israelis occupied public places in communitylike encampments throughout the country, mounting mass rallies and demonstrations
attended by hundreds of thousands of people almost on a weekly basis. The main reason
that brought so many people to identify with and join the relatively small group of
youngsters who shortly before had moved to live in Rothschild boulevard, at the heart of
Tel Aviv, resonated with similar protest activity taking place in other parts of the world:
the neoliberal economy and its unbearable social repercussions.
As elsewhere across the world (e.g. Spain and the USA), the Israeli occupiers
expressed their anger and frustration over issues such as high cost of daily necessities (e.g.
food and gasoline), housing prices (both for purchase and rent) and low salaries. What
amplified the rage of the Israeli occupiers in particular was related to the gradual yet
consistent retreat of the State from its traditional welfare ideology and practices in favor of
massive neoliberal privatization. In a country fraught with wars and existential threats,
where a deeply infused security culture and well-established military complex suppress all
other issue domains, and army generals often shape state policy; in such a country, the
sheer fact that such a wide-reaching and intensive opposition was mounted should not be
thought of lightly. In fact, given the negative association of the term occupy in Israel, the
tent protesters would have never named their collective claims-making that way.
Correspondence Address: Eitan Y. Alimi, Department of Political Science, Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus,
Jerusalem, 91905, Israel. Email: msalimi@mscc.huji.ac.il
1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/12/340402-6 q 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2012.708921

A Tale of Hopeful Failure

403

For a moment, the Israeli protest summer, as Gamson (2011) has recently called it,
brought with it some rays of hope, pointing to a meaningful reshuffling of Israels political
culture from a one-dimensional security issue to a multidimensional one. In what follows,
I analyze the context, rise, rapid growth and yet swift abatement of the Israeli Occupy
protest campaign. I argue that the reasons for the short-lived Israeli protest summer related
more to difficulties in coping with intra-movement challenges, framing alignment and a
relatively closed political environment, and less with the omnipresent security issuea
fact that leaves me somewhat optimistic and hopeful of the Israeli experience.

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Where From?
Compared to other issues (foreign, security, ethnicity, religion, etc.), socioeconomic
protest in Israel has always had the lower-hand in setting the agenda of Israels politics.
Perhaps the main reason for this is the omnipresent security situation, which has been
key in shaping public discourse since the pre-statehood era. This is not to say that public
unrest over socioeconomic issues has not led to protesting and rioting; nor has it been a
non-issue among political parties and candidates. The point is that as pressing and
demanding a given socioeconomic concern might be, it will always be moved aside and
silenced when cannons roar. Backtracking into the history of Israeli society and politics
it seems that the frequency and duration of socioeconomic protest tend to be inversely
related to the severity, whether real or perceived, of the security situation.
In spring 1971, for example, a time of relative calmness in terms of security threat,
Israel was shaken by a small group from a Jerusalemite slum, of Sephardic origin, who
protested against what they perceived as unjust government socioeconomic policy that
systematically discriminated against oriental Jews. This group of youngsters, naming
themselves the Black Panthers after the US Black Panther Party that inspired them,
managed to broaden their protest and to sustain it for more than 2 years with some
significant signs of success, yet only to lose momentum in the buildup to the Yom Kippur
War. They simply did not have a chance! To give a sense of how deeply ingrained the
security situation is in peoples cognition and thinking, consider the following: in early
2003, during the national election campaign and while the second Intifada was still raging,
a lower-class woman described her unbearable economic situation as a result of
Netanyahus (then minister of finance) neoliberal economic policy, on national TV. When
asked whether she would favor the Labor party candidate, Amram Mitzna, given his social
welfare agenda, over Prime Minister Sharon, she replied no wayMitzna loves Arabs.
Protest by Whom and for What?
Having to cope with the same age-old security obstacle as had others before them (again
the Palestinians, the Iranian nuclear specter, as well as heightening tension vis-a`-vis
Syria with President Assads attempts to ignite Israels northern border in order to deflect
international attention from his brutal repression of his people), the Israeli occupiers
nonetheless differed from previous movements in two meaningful ways. First, and unlike
in the past, Israeli occupiers were mostly middle-class, ranging from youngsters and
students, through workers in high- and low-tech, service workers in both private and
public sectors, to freelancersthe Israeli summer protest movement was far from a poor
peoples movement, to use Piven and Clowards (1979) term. What brought these people

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E.Y. Alimi

to take to the streets was the deepening and worrisome gap between their high future
expectations and their constantly weakening financial situations. Put simply, we are
dealing with people who could no longer make it through the month, so to speak, based on
their income.
There were (and still are) good reasons for the occupiers discontent, which leads me to
the second point of difference. The move away from a welfare state to neoliberal global
capitalism, accelerated by Netanyahu as minister of finance during Sharons first term as
Prime Minister between 2003 and 2005, has reached full speed under Netanyahus own
administration. Not surprisingly, the initial demands centered on affordable housing (rent
or purchase), tax reform, reducing the concentration of the Israeli economy, regulation
over prices of food and other daily necessities (e.g. gas) and fair salaries.
Quickly enough, however, demands began to re-shift to what the protesters saw as yet
another source of their predicament, one that is rooted in unjust social inequalities and
wrongful national priorities. If, as the minister of finance and his proxies took pride in
arguing daily that Israel is not experiencing the unfortunate fate of Greece, Portugal,
Ireland or Spain as a result of a responsible financial system and policy, and therefore the
national budget framework must be strictly adhered to, then a solution can (in fact should)
be found in changing national priorities. Thus, instead of offering band-aid gestures and
insinuating that most protesters were in fact spoiled, reckless bohemians, what the
government should do is to relocate funds and to equalize the share of the burden.
By chanting the People wants social justice, Israeli occupiers were not only calling
for a more humane economic policy but, closely related, accused the government of
favorably discriminating toward and applying important welfare policy measures to
benefit specific populations (e.g. ultra-orthodox) and specific places (e.g. settlements). No
wonder then that alongside demands for greater allocation of funds to education and
daycare centers, there were additional demands (although made less explicitly as a way to
attract ultra-orthodox Jews and Arab supporters) for greater investment in public housing
in pre-1967 Israel, and applying compulsory military service to all, or benefiting those who
do military service.
How Protest?
Precipitating the Israeli occupy experience was a successful e-mobilization campaign, to
use Earl and Kimports (2011) conceptualization, launched on Facebook in June 2011 and
which focused on boycotting cottage cheese. The campaign, which rapidly attracted over
100,000 like followers, forced dairy companies in Israel to significantly lower the price
of cheese (along with other foodstuffs), which skyrocketed after the government decided
to stop regulating it in 2008. Encouraged by these signs of success, the Israeli occupy
campaign took off with the first protest-tent encampment put up in Tel Aviv, following a
Facebook event by Daphni Leef, a former student and video-editor by profession who,
like many others, realized she could no longer afford accommodation rental prices in the
city. This first encampment was soon emulated elsewhere in Tel Aviv and in other cities by
participants who responded to the Facebook calls.
Whether or not the initiators of the occupy campaign were consciously inspired by
similar past episodes of encampment in public places that took shape during the 1980s and
early 1990s is unclear. What is certain, however, is that the Israeli occupiers were
encouraged by the power of the masses they witnessed in nearby Arab countries, and

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A Tale of Hopeful Failure

405

emulated the successful indignados protest-tent campaign in Madrid, which began in midMay 2011. Accordingly, in addition to what Tilly (2004) called the public representation
of unity and commitment by occupying public places and turning them into communitylike housing, the main action tactic devised to voice the occupiers demands and to
demonstrate their rapidly growing number was mass rallies.
Almost every week, usually on Saturday evening, mass rallies were organized in city
squares or other open spaces in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva and additional
cities across the country, with ever-broadening participation. The biggest orchestrated
rallies took place on 3 September 2011, attracting some 500,000 participants in total. The
message that was voiced in all the mass rallies was simple, authentic and, as such,
powerful; by chanting the People wants social justice, the Israeli occupiers called for
the need to place society before economy, to be a-political, to be broad based,
diffused, with no form of hierarchy and partisan organizing (rarely were politicians
allowed to participate, and at times the terms chaos and anarchy were also voiced) and to
have the government come up with concrete solutions.
Yet the potential of this spontaneous act of defiance to attract supporters and goal
promotion has its downsides. In the short-term, an all-inclusive message may be good for
action mobilization, resonating with as many people and groups as possible (Snow et al.,
1986; Klandermans, 1997). Indeed, the diversity of groups who quickly joined the
occupiers was unprecedented, including the student national association (led by its chair
Itzik Shmuli who soon became one of the central leading figures alongside Leef), social
workers, medical interns, youth movements from both the left-wing and right-wing ends of
the political spectrum, parents of disabled children, animal rights organizations, left-wing
groups and Israeli-Arab activists, the Reformist movement, settler groups and many
others. For a moment, it looked as if the prospects for a true social revolution were there.
In the long term, however, such a catch all framing may not only be too abstract for
participants to sustain their commitment, but also detrimental for forming and managing
consensus over means and goals. Collective forums for deliberating strategy and how to
frame demands and goals, as well as coordinating activities, whether among the various
leadership cores or between them and other occupy protest activities initiated by lowerclass people, were scarce, leading periodically to intense disagreements and rifts. A telling
example took place in late August during a press conference held in Tel Aviv. While
several key leadership figures refused to participate, others accused those who did of
acting on their own, and that their rejection of the government-appointed commission to
look into the situation and offer solutions was unrepresentative. As it turned out, the Israeli
occupy summer resembled more a coalition-like protest activity than a movement whose
participants felt linked by ties of solidarity and identity (Diani et al., 2010).
Ironically, the lack of greater specification of claims and a proactive stance regarding
solutions (i.e. we are not the ones to come up with solutions), certainly a major cause of
alarm and embarrassment for the Netanyahu coalition, nonetheless gave the government
the wiggle room and way out it needed. To be sure, Netanyahu had little reason to be
concerned. Not only did his broad coalition have a clear and stable majority in the Knesset,
rendering any no-confidence motion insignificant, but there also was little if any
opposition to be concerned about. Kadima, which gained the majority last of the vote in
the national election, could have provided the political opening and ally, yet was too
deeply fragmented and divided to have a clear voice or even to embrace some kind of
social stance.

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Facing no meaningful threat to its political positioning, coupled with a lack of concrete
demands on the part of the occupiers, Netanyahu seized the moment, and in early August
declared the appointment of a special commission of economic expertsthe Trajtenberg
commissionto offer solutions. Realizing that the government was effectively kicking
their struggle into the long grass and that they were losing the initiative, and facing
mounting public criticism over their lack of a constructive agenda, occupy leaders
convened in order to come up with specific demands. This, however, was a case of too late
and too little. By the time they tried to come up with a list of demands, leading to intense
disagreements and rifts, they had already lost the momentum and been portrayed as
complete amateurs, which only reinforced those early calls that presented them as
unworthy coffee-shop revolutionaries. On 4 September, the day after the largest public
rally of all, with some 500,000 protesters spread throughout the country despite a
horrendous terrorist attack that threatened to conjure up the omnipresent security
situation all over again, leaders of the student groups declared it was time to disassemble
the encampments and start negotiating with the government.
The Israeli Occupy Case in Perspective
It was not surprising that the decision to disassemble the encampments was met with
strong objection and resentment from many leading figures and groups. Despite opposition
which, in some instances, resulted in violent encounters with police forces evicting
protesters, it took several days for the Israeli occupy campaign to dissipate. One is tempted
to be skeptical about the Israeli case, especially those of us who have been living the Israeli
experience, given the gloomy experience of popular contention over socioeconomic issues
in Israel. Nevertheless, attempting to look at the glass as if it is one-third full leaves one
somewhat hopeful. Admittedly, measured by the ultimate test of successpolicy
changethe Israeli protest-tent summer would be considered a failure. Yet, it is also true
that the Israeli summer has propelled an important shift in public and media discourse,
showing the way to future initiatives and forcing the government to take the public voice
into consideration more seriously than before. Of even greater importance is the fact that
the decision to disassemble the encampments reflected a failure to adequately address a
variety of challenges that social movements in other places have been facing, and not the
age-old incapacitating security situation. The fact that under such an omnipresent security
mentality (which on so many instances has proved to be a self-fulfilling prophecy), we
have witnessed that such a powerful public voice is certainly a source of sober optimism.

Acknowledgements
Special thanks go to Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Sidney Tarrow, Naama Tridel, and Michael Ziv-Kenet for their
helpful comments on earlier version.

References
Diani, M., Lindsay, I. & Purdue, D. (2010) Sustained interactions? Social movements and coalitions in local
settings, in: N. Van Dyke & H. J. McCammon (Eds) Strategic AlliancesCoalition Building and Social
Movements, pp. 219 238 (Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press).
Earl, J. & Kimport, K. (2011) Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press).

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Gamson, W. A. (2011) Arab Spring, Israeli summer, and the process of cognitive liberation, Swiss Political
Science Review, 17, pp. 463468.
Klandermans, B. (1997) The Psychology of Social Protest (Oxford: Blackwell).
Piven, F. F. & Cloward, R. A. (1979) Poor Peoples Movement: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New York:
Vintage).
Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B., Worden, S. K. & Benford, R. (1986) Frame alignment processes,
micromobilization, and movement participation, American Sociological Review, 51, pp. 464481.
Tilly, C. (2004) Social Movements, 17682004 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers).

Eitan Y. Alimi is an assistant professor of Political Sociology in the Department of

Political Science, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. in sociology
from Boston College, USA. His research interests include social movements and
contentious politics, conflict dynamics and processes, and political violence and terrorism.
His recent publications include articles in British Journal of Political Science,
Sociological Forum, Political Studies, Mobilization, Theory and Society, Comparative
Politics, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and International Political Science Review. He
is the author of Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian IntifadaPolitical Opportunities,
Framing Processes and Contentious Politics, published by Routledge in 2007.