social justice

Tens of thousands of Israelis protest government corruption in Tel Aviv's Rothschild Blvd, December 2, 2017. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Tens of thousands protest government corruption in Tel Aviv

Netanyahu is currently facing three separate corruption probes, and his political allies are promoting legislation to shield him from accountability. (Read Dahlia Scheindlin’s report from the protest.) By +972 Staff and Haggai Matar Tens of thousands of Israelis packed into Tel Aviv’s posh Rothschild Boulevard Saturday night to protest government corruption, as well as new legislation that would shield…

By +972 Magazine December 2, 2017

Culture Minister Miri Regev reacts at the Knesset assembly hall during a question period with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 18, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israel’s culture minister is no friend of cultural equality

Culture Minister Miri Regev may be right in wanting to change the unbalanced distribution of Israel’s resources, but she’s going about it all wrong. By Yossi Dahan Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev is right to speak about the need for “social justice” in Israel, and she is correct when she says that the distribution of…

By Haokets August 9, 2016

Givat Amal residents outside of the area cordoned off by police, Tel Aviv, December 29, 2014. The Yoo Towers can be seen in the background. (Photo by Activestills.org)

Desperation and hope in the eviction of Givat Amal

The first-hand story of eviction in one of Tel Aviv’s poorest neighborhoods. ‘They are trying to frighten us,’ someone said, and everyone crowded together and held each other even tighter. Then a sledgehammer punched a hole in the drywall. We didn’t expect them to enter that way, the way soldiers did in Jenin during Operation Protective…

By Haggai Matar January 3, 2015

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Demonstrators blocking the road in the entrance to the neigborhood. (Keren Manor/Activestills)

PHOTOS: Working class neighborhood takes to TA streets ahead of evictions

On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, 20 families are expected to be evicted from their homes in the Givat Amal neighborhood without just compensation. Neighborhood residents and supporters took to the streets in north Tel Aviv and blocked main roads to protest the imminent eviction. Photos and text: Keren Manor/Activestills Residents…

By Activestills September 16, 2014

Policemen hold down a protester during the evacuation of the Givat Amal neighborhood. Protesters chanted slogans and burned tires. (photo: Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: Police evacuate families from working-class Tel Aviv neighborhood

After lengthy legal battle, six families of Givat Amal lose their homes. Photos by: Shiraz Grinbaum, Keren Manor/Activestills.org, Text by Edo Konrad Police evicted six families from the Givat Amal neighborhood in northern Tel Aviv Thursday morning, after they lost a lengthy court battle for their rights to the land. Residents and community activists gathered…

By Activestills March 27, 2014

Palestinian activists confront Israeli soldiers during a march on Road 60, the main North-South route through the West Bank, in a Nakba Day protest, May 15, 2013. The Nakba, literally, the "catastrophe", names the massive deportation of more then 700,000 Palestinian, made refugees and driven out of what became the State of Israel in 1948. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Breaking down walls to remembering the Nakba: A week in photos – May 9-15

This week: Remembering Nakba Day on both sides of the Green Line, demonstrations against the occupation, settlements and the separation wall, social justice protests in Israel, Women of the Wall, solidarity with asylum seekers after police raids and a wall comes down in Lod.

By Activestills May 17, 2013

Thousands on the streets of Tel Aviv last night (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Masses demonstrate against austerity measures in Israel

Over 12,000 Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest against proposed tax hikes and spending cuts in the state’s new budget. But will the latest iteration of Israel’s social justice protest movement continue? The anger in the streets Saturday may be an indication that the movement will continue and…

By Haggai Matar May 12, 2013

An organic intellectual and social justice pioneer: A profile of Shlomo Swirski

A profile of one of the most influential people in the struggle for social justice in Israel. Although he was kept out of academia, perhaps it was for the better. Who knows how much we would have lost had he wasted his days trying to sneak an article into the American Journal of Sociology. By…

By Haokets May 11, 2013

Public housing activists and other social activists protesting in front of the house of the new finance minister, Yair Lapid. April 6 2013 (photo: Yotam Ronen / Activestills)

Can Israel’s social justice protest movement make a comeback?

Will Israeli masses return to the streets for social justice? After nearly a month of weekly protests outside the house of Yair Lapid, the new finance minister – numbering about 400 people each and organized by post-#J14 groups for public housing – a much bigger demonstration is planned for Saturday night with more than 10,000…

By Haggai Matar May 10, 2013

Largest j14 protest of half million in Kikar Hamedina Sept 3 2011 (Activestills)

Where is the social protest movement in the Israeli elections?

Did the revolution lose its sex appeal? Did the J14 leaders enable politicians to ignore them? Whatever the reason, it is clear that the main benefactor of this state of affairs is Prime Minister Netanyahu. By Ilan Manor With the elections just two weeks away, it has become apparent that the 2013 elections are no…

By +972 Magazine January 13, 2013

Demonstrators at Dizengof Center

The next step in the fight for social justice: Jumping off Dizengoff Center

On my walk home from work this afternoon, I happened to pass by Dizengoff Center. There was a mass of people, which steadily grew during the time I spent watching, as police officers attempted to calm the scene. Eight young people stood, as if in some kind of eerie performance, on the bridge connected the…

By Ori J. Lenkinski September 19, 2012

Palestinian youth blocked traffic in Bethlehem in a protest against the rising cost of living and criticizing the Palestinian Authority leadership, September 8, 2012. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Photo essay: Palestinians protest high prices, Israeli economic control

A wave of protests in the occupied Palestinian territories against the high cost of living has raised the obvious question as to whether the ‘Arab Spring’ has arrived in Palestine. Since demonstrations started in the first week of September, Palestinians have regularly blocked roads in major West Bank cities, protesting the high prices for food,…

By Activestills September 17, 2012

A mask protester wears a sign reading " we did not forget the Mofaz daysl " (referring to earlier protest against a planned visit of Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz) during a protest marching to the Muquata, the PA headquarters; in the West bank city of Ramallah to protest the rising cost of living, especially fuel and food, and calling for the resignation of the Palestinian National Authority's Salam Fayyad and the end of the Paris protocol, September 11, 2012. Protesters condemned continuous increases in taxes, cuts to public sector wages and the oppressive rule of the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations, an agreement signed with Israel in 1994, which laid out the economic relations between Israel and the PA within the Oslo framework, and which turned out to be mostly about ensuring Israel's economic domination of the Palestinian market and has prevented the development of an independent Palestinian economy. Some protesters also called for the end of the Oslo accords.
(photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

A week in photos: September 6-12

Palestinian protests against the cost of living and PA leadership grew in size and intensity, as weekly demonstrations continued and threats of demolition and settler violence remain a fact of life under occupation. Israelis also took to the streets over media and social justice issues. Activestills images tell the stories of the week.

By Activestills September 13, 2012