Israel’s budget cuts trigger grassroots protest vigil

JERUSALEM -- What began as a personal crusade to overturn Israel's deep budget cuts is growing into popular political agitation, with disenfranchised minority groups from all over the country converging on the Treasury offices in Jerusalem to vent their grievances.

Ilana Azulai, 53, a single mother from Arad, set out from the desert town pushing her disabled son, Yossi, in a wheelchair and arrived Monday morning. She said she was inspired by the efforts of Vikki Knafo, who catalyzed the debate by hiking to Jerusalem from Mitzpe Ramon last week and meeting with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Her impromptu tent encampment outside the Treasury has become a focus of pilgrimage.

Azulai told Israel Radio she was driven primarily by her own feelings of helplessness. "It was the hunger that pushed me," she said Sunday. "The shame I feel when I look into my son's eyes, the fact that I don't have any food to prepare for him."

The single-mothers' protest is being joined by three married men, who set out on foot from Dimona on Sunday to Jerusalem to protest the income cuts implemented as part of the emergency economic plan.

When asked why they are marching on the capital, Daniel Tamir and Ofir Davidovich said "We are on the brink of despair. People are going hungry, they have nothing to live on. We've just had it. We want to make our cry heard by the prime minister and finance minister."

Davidovich said they were inspired by Knafo and that they intend to begin a hunger strike across the street from the prime minister's residence in the capital.

"The protest has given us the green light to challenge the government," commented one demonstrator, a widowed mother of eight, at Knafo's tent encampment. "Until now, there has been no one to listen. The banks didn't want to hear us, the unions didn't want to hear us, the minister didn't want to hear us. But now we're going to make them listen."

Burgeoning public support means that the assembled crowd represents a microcosm of Israeli society, with religious and secular factions joining forces to present a united front against what is widely viewed as the rapacity of government officials. "I never thought it would come to the point where they would be taking money from those who could least afford it," lamented one of the demonstrators, a single mother of two.

"There's no way out," declared Susan, recently unemployed. "When you have no food to feed your children, you've got nothing to lose."

The protest entered its second week amid news that as many as 11 more single mothers were preparing to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem in a bid to pressure the government into rescinding cuts to child allowances and income supplements imposed by the latest budget.

"You see," said Knafo, reflecting on the growing scope of the protest. "People are coming from everywhere. And there's more on their way."