ODA-Da'am and the protest movement
The participation of ODA-Da'am (hereinafter "ODA") in the protest was natural. Social issues have been the core of our work since we established the Workers Advice Center (WAC-Maan) and linked our fate to that of the working class. In light of the freeze in relations between Jews and Arabs, Hamas' domination of the Palestinian political arena, and the lack of faith in the policies of Israeli governments, we decided to build from the ground up, renewing the trust and cooperation between Jews and Arabs not on a joint political platform but on a firm social basis.
Our position is that despite cultural and political differences, Jewish and Arab workers meet on an equal footing when they receive their pay slips, which grant them all minimum wage without peripheral benefits. Poverty may affect Arabs more than Jews, but it does not leave Jews unaffected either. Thus we decided to focus on the workers while other left wing parties, both Arab and Jewish, stuck with the middle class.
In 2005, we decided to revive the May 1st (Labor Day) march after the Histadrut killed it off. Since then we have marched along Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard each year in a demonstration of workers, both Jewish and Arab. On March 8 and May 1, 2011, we adopted the slogan "equality and social justice," influenced by the revolution in Egypt. We always believed that the place to protest the dire straits of the workers and present their demands was the center of Tel Aviv, where public opinion with a social orientation is beginning to be heard. Representatives of Kav Laoved, the Hotline for Migrant Workers, the Legal Clinic of Tel Aviv University, workers' committees and lecturers all spoke on the stage we set up. We were full partners in the movement that paved the way for the protest on July 14 this year.
Our position was based on a clear political demand to do away with the current government and hold new elections, which, in our opinion, reflected the desire of the broader public. The protest movement leadership made a mistake in turning to the government, which is the most recent in a long string of governments responsible for the social breakdown, and demanding that this same government adopt the protest's agenda. Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed the Trajtenberg Committee to come up with proposals for diminishing the social gaps, but specifying that the existing budget must not be exceeded. The protest's leaders knew that the limitation would preclude the scale of change required for social justice, but instead of calling for new elections, they appointed their own parallel committee of professors. This only complicated the situation, leaving the main initiative in the government's hands. Today, after the tents have been pulled down, the government can relate to the Trajtenberg Committee's findings as mere recommendations, to be filed and forgotten.
The "secretive" behavior of the protest leadership also contributed to the internal divisions within the protest movement. Protest encampments in peripheral towns expressed their lack of faith in Daphni Leef and her comrades. Reliance on "strategic consultants" and the media made the protest seem more like a marketing campaign than a popular struggle with a clear agenda. The protest was sold like shampoo, both to settlers and to Arabs, to the secular and to the religious. It may have won unprecedented media coverage, but it failed to define a clear goal except for the sweeping demand to change the system without changing the government. Thus it now has no achievements to show.
Following the dismantling of the tents, the movement is seeking a path while still rejecting the word "politics." However, change without politics is impossible, as the seekers of social justice will eventually realize. Moreover, the absence of the workers weakens the movement. Thus the protest stands on one leg, while the political leg remains folded, leaving the movement unstable.
However, despite all the above, and despite the movement's "apolitical" character, its political influence will be felt sooner or later. Netanyahu's coalition was dealt a heavy blow. More importantly, the protest changed the public discourse. The Knesset's obsession with legislating racist laws and with weakening the High Court of Justice have proved that the politicians are disconnected from the people. They built on incitement against Arabs as a way of strengthening their position and preserving their regime, but the people didn't follow this security bluff blindly. Instead, it shouted, "The emperor has no clothes!" Those who benefit from this policy of keeping the population scared are the tycoons who express their patriotism by investing abroad, while the workers hardly manage to make ends meet.
A workers' party now!
Our participation in the protest movement placed the ODA firmly in the political arena. Our position today is very different from what it was before July 2011. The ODA was established after the Israeli Left and the Arab parties adopted the Oslo Accords, thus burying the chance of establishing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. When many backed the Labor Party as "the best of a bad lot" and accepted the economic system as if decreed from heaven, they left Israeli workers without any political representation. Similarly, the transformation of the Histadrut-dominated economy into a privatized economy and the new "flexibility" of the labor force left Israeli workers without any union representation.
For these reasons, the ODA established the Workers Advice Center in the mid-nineties as an organization supporting and assisting Arab textile workers, construction workers and unemployed. We opposed the pro-American stance of the Palestinian Authority on one hand, and Hamas' Islamic fundamentalism on the other. We did not unquestioningly follow the call for armed resistance as the Arab parties did, and we did not support the Zionist left, which neglected the Palestinian question and the workers in Israel. We took another path, which for many years remained just an aspiration. This path opposes American policy and capitalism, but also refuses to join forces with the regimes of Assad, the Hezbollah and Hamas. This path seeks change via the strengthening of the common class factor between Arab and Jewish workers.
After more than a decade, during which our call for a social revolution that transcends borders fell on deaf ears, something clicked. In January 2011, an agenda identical with ours began to take shape in the struggle of the youth of Egypt and Tunisia for democracy and social justice. The struggle was against both the corrupt pro-Western regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. The game between the dictatorial regime and the Islamic opposition throttled the Arab masses and ensured the continuation of the existing social order. But after four decades of domination by Islamic ideology, the workers of Egypt and the secular middle class broke the rules of the game. The program that united Egyptians and Tunisians rejected the two old options and offered a third alternative: not armed resistance, but a popular peaceful struggle; not an Islamic state, but a secular, democratic state; not privatization, but a welfare state.
The Egyptian revolution still has a long way to go to realize its aspirations, and it is dependent on developments in the western world too. But there can be no doubt that the change is deep and far-reaching. In 2008, when the workers of Al-Mahala al-Kubra in southern Egypt went on strike and set fire to pictures of Mubarak, they understood the rules of the game had changed. And indeed, within two years, the unbelievable happened and Mubarak's regime came tumbling down, together with the regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. Now Syria's turn is coming. We at the ODA have been waiting for this moment, believing that pointless incitement and opposition could not provide for the basic needs of citizens. And in Israel, in exactly the same way, nationalism and religion, extremism and messianic mysticism are unable to meet the demands for fair employment and social justice.
Israel's isolation, its conflict with the US administration and the loss of strategic allies like Turkey and Egypt, stem from its rejectionist position and its desire to maintain military superiority and the occupation. Arab workers around the Middle East who are demanding democracy will not agree to maintain normal relations with a state that systematically oppresses the Palestinian people. The protest in Israel can convey a message to the revolutionary movements in the region and around the world—we too are partners in the creation of a different future, a just society, and thus we oppose not only the dominant economic system but also the occupation which denies the Palestinians their most basic rights. Only a position like this can prevent the decline and death of the protest movement in Israel, and prevent it from being swallowed up by existing parties which are responsible for the social and political dead end.
The protest's importance lies in the fact that for the first time it is shaking up the social order in Israel. It thus opens the way for Jewish and Arab workers to unite and organize. They are no longer the "failed mediocrity", but victims of the system, those who build up the tycoons' economy for minimum wage and don't get to enjoy its fruits. The ODA, together with the workers' organization WAC, is situated among the workers. It is turning the protest movement into a lever for advancing the workers and promoting union organization. Without the active participation of the workers, no social justice will be possible. The workers must stand at the forefront of the struggle for change, together with the youth and the middle classes.
Therefore we call on all those who aim for revolutionary change, all those who see social justice as an inseparable part of peace and the struggle against the occupation, all who want to take part in creating a new Middle East—not like that envisaged by Shimon Peres and the decaying regimes, but like the one inspiring the Arab revolutions.The ODA is active on the ground, among the youth, among women, among workers of all sectors, among the intellectuals. The ODA is building a broad social movement and a workers' party with the strength to influence and generate change. Those who want revolutionary change, those who want to change the rules of the game, those who seek a framework for action on the basis of clear principles—will find a home in the ODA. Those who want not only to dream of justice but to bring it about are invited to join the struggle. This is the best time to do so.