Israel’s Radical Left by VICE News
In the summer of 2011, while the world was busy following the Arab Spring, nearly half a million Israelis took to the streets demanding social justice and an end to the rule of the tycoons. Still, the government didn’t listen. The protest movement was nicknamed J14 – short for July 14th – marking the date a girl called, Daphni Leef pitched the first tent in central Tel Aviv, in protest against extortionate rents and living costs.
Fed up with threats of imminent wars with their Arab neighbours, the hostile ways of land grabbing religious zealots, and the fact that almost two million Israelis are living in poverty, young people are choosing the path of dissent.
VICE followed Ronnie Barkan, an Israeli-Jew who fights for Palestinian rights to a protest in the West Bank. We meet Daphni Leef and Stav Shaffir, the poster girls of the protest movement, who inspire people all over Israel to get involved. We visit creatives who have developed unique ways of dealing with the government’s fear mongering: Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir, who started the Facebook campaign ‘Israel Loves Iran’; Artist, Guy Briller, who drives around with a missile on his car to ease the tension and make people laugh; and Yuda Braun, a former IDF soldier turned artist, who patrols the streets of conflict ridden areas as the White Soldier.
Finally, we get a gruesome reminder of the depths of desperation felt by many Israelis, when, during the massive one-year anniversary demo, we witness Moshe Silman’s fatal self-immolation in protest against Israel’s dysfunctional welfare system.
