The elephant in the tent: social and political justice, Tel Aviv, August 2011: a response to Or Rosenboim
Tel Aviv has known many hot summers in its history. But 2011 will probably be remembered as an exceptionally burning summer, one in which the city was flooded by tents occupied by young middle class residents, protesting against the rise in the cost of living. As Or Rosenboim argues, these protests were characterised by the claim to “go beyond the political”, to ask for social justice, referring to the colloquial distinction between issues relating to security and defence, and particularly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, regarded as “the political”, and “the social”. I wish to argue that these protests are closely interlinked to questions of foreign policy even though they put in much time and effort to avoid them. In a video …