Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged “real” economic change Sunday after huge nationwide demonstrations which broke Israeli records, as the media mulled the protest movement’s long-term impact. After an estimated 450,000 people turned out for protests across Israel to demand lower living costs, Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting that his government was determined to carry out effective reforms.
“The government I head is committed to execute real changes to alleviate the cost of living and fix social distortions,” he said.
He pointed to his decision to form a panel headed by respected economist Manuel Trachtenberg to examine the demands of the six-week-old protest movement, which has shown staying power and tapped into deep frustrations.
“This is a serious committee and it will submit to us serious recommendations,” he said. “Never has there been in Israel a committee that held an open and serious discourse with thousands of citizens.” The prime minister repeated previous warnings that his government would not approve spending that risked throwing Israel into economic crisis, vowing to “safeguard the economy and fix what needs fixing.”
His comments came after record-breaking numbers of Israelis took to the streets in cities for protests billed as a way of revitalising the social movement, after a relative lull.
Commentators hailed the demonstrations but saw them at a turning point, asking where the movement would go now.
Gideon Levy, writing in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the demonstrations were “historic” and that “the last of the complacent decided that they, too, had to show up.” “One day, the students will learn that on this momentous evening a civil society was born in Israel,” he wrote.
For most commentators, the size of the demonstrations was proof that the movement continues to draw support from across Israeli society.
“The entire social protest has succeeded greatly. It changed the public agenda and proved to the government that the public is not willing to take everything lying down,” wrote Nehemia Shtrasler in Haaretz newspaper. But Shtrasler warned that the movement now stood at a crossroads, facing a decision on whether to advocate sweeping reforms that are unlikely to win government support or to pursue more limited economic changes.
“It is the dilemma between those who want revolution and those who want evolution.” Comments from Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who has consistently warned against new government spending, emphasised the tough choices that the protesters face.
Speaking before the cabinet meeting, he said: “I’d like to remind everyone that we are currently part of the most turbulent and dangerous economic environment since the establishment of the state.
“We must maintain our budgetary framework and economic responsibility because the whole world is currently a narrow bridge and whoever strays from it could fall, and the crash could be very serious.”
Writing in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot newspaper, leading Israeli commentators Nahum Barnea said the movement “was as much about values as it is about economics.”
But Netanyahu’s government was unlikely to carry out the sort of sweeping changes that many protesters hoped to see.
