Israel’s media yesterday hailed the country’s swelling protest movement, saying the crowds that poured onto the streets overnight amounted to a “revolution” that the government can not ignore.
“A new country — Israel in the street,” announced the top-selling Yediot Aharonot, splashing its headline in the white and blue of the Israeli flag.
Its commentator Nahum Barnea played up the diversity and “positivity” of the more than 250,000 people who flooded cities across the Jewish state on Saturday night for “unprecedented” demonstrations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet “won’t be able to ignore this outcry. Not because they believe that the outcry is justified, but because it reflects a force that threatens their continued hold on power,” he said.
In the left-leaning Haaretz, Gideon Levy compared the protest crowds to those which massed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square earlier this year to overthrow then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
“Now the comparison to the Cairo revolution is not exaggerated or wishful thinking,” he wrote. “A regime that remains impassive to such gigantic rallies would be completely insensitive and in any case is destined to fall.”
The Yediot’s Sima Kadmon warned Netanyahu that he could no longer dismiss the protesters as fringe left-wingers.
“Hundreds of thousands marched. Not anarchists, not leftists, not sushi and hookahs, but the people of Israel. Regular Israelis,” she wrote. “Your people are demanding ... something big, something meaningful, something important.”
Nadav Eyal, writing in the Maariv daily, also stressed the protests could not be played down as “a dark, left-wing conspiracy.”
“Bibi,” he wrote, using Netanyahu’s nickname, “what you see is what it is. A demand for social justice. A desire to rewrite the Israeli contract.”
Eyal said Netanyahu was not the target of the demonstrators “for the time being,” but warned the right-wing leader that his political future could be at stake.
“Bibi, it’s your decision. Israel is demanding a New Deal,” he said, “if you can deliver, act and act now. If you can’t, then step aside and get out of the way.”
However, some commentators warned Israel risked economic disaster if it enacted the kind of sweeping and costly reforms that protesters are demanding.
“The protest is bubbling up everywhere, has burst out of every crack, has prompted hundreds of thousands of people to leave home in peak heat and humidity, to march on foot,” Ben Caspit wrote in the Maariv.
However, he warned that the continuing global economic crisis, and the downgrade of the US’ credit rating, holds real risks for the Israel economy.
“That’s why we need to keep things in check ... We mustn’t go on a rampage now and allow unbridled spending,” he wrote.
“Things need to be fixed, the direction the ship is sailing needs to be changed, and all that needs to be done responsibly, with a steady hand on the steering wheel and with moderation,” he said.
Meanwhile, the government yesterday formed a panel of government ministers and some of the country’s leading economic experts to draw up a plan to reduce the soaring cost of living, marking new efforts to defuse demonstrations over prices.
The special committee would present its recommendations within a month, Gidi Schmerling, a spokesman for Netanyahu, told Army Radio.
Netanyahu “has defined a goal — to correct social wrongs — and he will work towards that goal in a genuine and intensive manner,” Schmerling said.
Trading on Israel’s Tel Aviv stock exchange was temporarily halted yesterday after the market fell 6 percent at the open on news of the US credit rating downgrade, public radio reported.
Additional reporting by AP
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese