International Women's day - Arab Women Marching in Tel Aviv

This is a serious topic for a serious day - one that I knew about, but didn't write about in a timely manner.  And yet, I'm also a feeling a little bit snarky. Here's why:

Nir Nader, the coordinator of the workers center's Tel Aviv branch, accused the government and employers of giving preference to foreign workers instead of Israeli citizens.

"In Arab society, the unemployment issue is very central," said Nader. "Eighty-three percent of female Arab citizens of Israel don't work. There are 30,000 jobs in agriculture, and Arab women are willing to take them. All that's needed as an initial condition is to give them minimum wage and transportation to work, which would be eight hours a day, in accordance with the law. Instead, the government and the employers prefer foreign workers. Two weeks ago, they brought another 3,000 foreign workers into the industry."

Just so we're clear, this is a quote from an article in Ha'aretz about a demonstration of Arab women demanding their full rights of workers. They were organized by Ma'an, a worker's rights center, which in turn is a nonprofit connected to the Organization for Democratic Action, a political party that describes itself as:

a party uniting Jews and Arabs, seeks to move society toward socialism. To this end we maintain connections with workers' movements and labor unions throughout the world. We present an alternative both to predatory capitalism and to religious fundamentalism.

The ODA is an outgrowth of a group that alas, no longer exists. It's the former 'Derech ha-Nitzotz' group, which was repressed by the Israeli authorities in 1988 for being, more or less, the Israeli branch of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an illegal organization considered to be a terrorist group.

I remember this group well. They published an excellent weekly that covered the brutality of the occupation in the 80's, the years when most Israelis felt like occupying the Palestinians was some kind of sustainable operation. What was interesting about them, was that it appeared to be a tightly knit organization with a Jewish leadership with what looked like a largely Palestinian membership and following.

That's why I'm chuckling at the Ha'aretz article. They quoted Nir Nader (a nice guy and well known artist, FYI), a Jewish man living in Tel-Aviv, for an article about Arab women protesting on International Women's Day. How utterly consistent for the old Nitzotz crew. How utterly consistent for the media.

(That being said, I miss the old Tel-Aviv left. We had Shasi (defunct), Matzpen (defunct), that crazy Anarchist gang led by Spartak and his brother, Avanguard, Tavsam (War Resisters League - Israel chapter) and so many more - all defunct. Sigh. If anyone reading this remembers Toma Shik on his bike handing out flyers at every single demonstration - give us a shout out.)

Check out Challenge Magazine if you want to stay current with the views of a small group of Israeli Marxists, Jewish and Arab.