Today was my first march / demo in Tel Aviv in some time. We marched for human rights, a rather loaded topic nowadays. The demos in Tel Aviv are always pretty tame. If you compare them to the stuff I saw in the news about yesterday’s demos in London (my other city, so big shout of solidarity to my fellow Brits who had the balls to risk their lives and march on parliament) then they’re literally a walk in the park.
Of course, the real hardcore demos take place in the actual places of real conflict – in East Jerusalem, in Ni’ilin, etc. Where today people were being tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets while we listened to speeches and music and debated whether to stop for pizza or the last of the hannukah doughnuts on the way home.
Some people did both marches. There are some very hardcore protesters that come from Tel Aviv. I’m not much of a fighter, myself, but even our safe, more cowardly march has a place. You should be able to express your dissatisfaction with government policy even if you don’t want to risk being shot in the eye with a rubber bullet. Predictably, 10k people marching peacefully in Tel Aviv made the news. People clashing violently to make the same point in Ni’ilin and Bil’in barely did and only because today was the 1 year anniversary of the so called “leader” of the Bil’in protest being in jail. In Israel, unlike the UK, violent demos in occupied territories aren’t news. Will either of those marches change anything? I doubt it, but there you go.
As I marched for human rights with the other 10k or more people, I couldn’t help but notice the very strong refugee / foreign worker / migrant presence at the march. Unlike the rather sedate slogan shouting from the Israeli left and the confused vuvuzela racket from the Im Tirzu fascist lamers, the refugees seemed to be surprisingly organised. They marched fast and they shouted their slogans quickly in a very energised way that was really refreshing to watch. I have no idea what they were shouting. I asked one of them (in English) but I think his English wasn’t up to scratch to explain it to me.
We came across another refugee later who asked us wherther he could get across to the next street over from where we were. He asked in broken Hebrew and I was suddenly struck by how important it is for these people to be able to speak the language. Marching with them I noticed how even though we were all marching together, they were marching as a unit that was very separate from the rest. Watching hundreds of refugees marching and shouting slogans in a language you don’t understand can be quite intimidating if you’re an average guy on the street who may not be particularly interested in politics. The government, intent on kicking these people out, is doing nothing to help them integrate into Israeli society so it’s up to the private support organisations to do the work, which I gather they do really well with small budgets and teams of dedicated volunteers. For those of us who are interested in human rights and political activism, these guys are going to make great allies so it’s in our best interest to help them integrate as quickly as possible.