even if we've got an apartment!!!

Kol- hacavod!!!

The protest organizers are right and there is a problem with rent and basic living expenses here. But there are other sides to this: 1) These kids who are my age need to grow up. Tel Aviv is expensive. End of discussion. It's like living in Manhattan. You're going to pay more to live in a popular area. 2) The government should allow building to continue en masse. That will force prices down. 3) The populist rhetoric used reeks of socialism. I can easily see protests being hijacked by some socialist nut who will hand power over to Amir Peretz and company and set us back decades rather actually continue forward and force the Knesset to address the problems that caused the situation in the first place. 4) The socialist mentality of the protesters. What they want is essentially to be given housing while being allowed to make money and have savings to spend on themselves. They can't have it both ways. They need to choose whether they want to be capitalist or not. Someone has to pay for all of this.

They have the right to protest if they believe there is a housing crisis, to which they have no right is chock streets and prevent the free movement of others who do not believe in housing crisis. Aspiring to believe that the Israeli miracle is so great that an apartment in Manhattan worth the same as in New Jersey, or in the center of Paris is as good as in the vicinity. Is to break all economic laws, only believable by those who believe equality of the Grange fantasy of Orwell.

president terms, these protest is more political than anything else, the protestors don't have any alternative to offer, what do you think your gov will do? can't build houses in less than 2 years, before this term ends. and all prices lately goes up every where the USA is in great debt.

They have the right to protest if they believe there is a housing crisis, to which they have no right is chock streets and prevent the free movement of others who do not believe in housing crisis. Aspiring to believe that the Israeli miracle is so great that an apartment in Manhattan worth the same as in New Jersey, or in the center of Paris is as good as in the vicinity. Is to break all economic laws, only believable by those who believe equality of the Grange fantasy of Orwell.

What a load of BS. All the economic measures are better than average and even inflation is not too high. We are no more in a crisis now than a year ago. Furthermore beyond the large increase in housing starts by the government in the past two years there is nothing to do. There is a shortage and while it is less now than under those idiots from Kadima there is no magic instant solution for housing. I only would like to remind all those hypocrites who could have cared less that it has taken more than 6 years to provide substitute housing for the people transfered from their homes during disengagement. If they had to wait 6 years then why should people seeking homes in the most desireable locations in the country get instant service to their whining.

The amount of money invested in Ariel and other settlements, per capita, enables you to put down people worse off than your lot

of anothers tax shkelim in support, other than for life sustaining assistance, i.e. food or drink; emergency medical care, just, or any semblance of Justice? Why should anyone have to be assessed monies to provide for another's residence? What no social justice when the 60inch flat screen plasma TV, is not provided? What about a nice new auto? And clothes. Do NOT forget fashion. OK. The so far un-answered question is this: Where and when has socialism, as an national economic effort EVER been effective? Do these protestors consider saving up for a down payment on a residence? Or moving to Judea-Samaria, or the Golan? This whole thing is a microcosm of silliness of residents in a fashionable neighborhood of New York City refusing to move to Kansas or Texas, or Idaho where they can find plentiful and reasonable cost effective housing, because they want "FREE STUFF" at someone elses costs. This places the "marchers/protesters" in the same catagory as a "squeegee man" with a damp cloth and a squeegee" allegedly washing one's auto windshield, for a handout. Find work. Save your money. Invest in your own future and that is how you can find "Social Justice".

Perhaps if they were at work, they would be able to afford the rent. Just saying... Seriously, there is a problem, but blocking the roads and causing innocent civilians problems isn't the way to handle it.

You are right. The one lady sitting on the white line should go back to blocking a refridgerator. It would be a good time to get out high pressure water hoses and clean the streets. Nobody should have a right to block traffic.

I read one talkback after another and I can clearly see a sharp division between those who live comfortably in Israel and those who live in dire crisis! All words about "cheap populism" come from those who have "kviyut", "protektsiya", well-to-do parents and own dwellings. They just don't get it! I've met in Israel people thrown to dogs under Bibi's "Wisconsin" program, I have a "Russian" lady friend, who is a magnificent photographer and good Journalist, and works like a slave 12 hours per day for a news site to make some 7000 shekels, of which she pays HALF for a shitty flat in Bat-Yam. I've visited other people who being 12-15 years in Israel, still live in rented accomodation, 4-6 persons sharing a small old delapidated flat to somehow make ends meet. Those of you here who talk BS about cheap populism - you just don't want to see what's going on around you. You visit regularly expensive "health clubs", you live in spacey well bult flats in posh areas - why should you see the squalor and poverty around? Shame on you! Israel quckly skids along the spiral to the Latin-American model, with rich hasiendas behind barb-wire, surrounded by ruins and squalor. Is it what we want to see in our little country surrounded by crocodiles? Will it produce valiant heroes for IDF? We are in big-big TROUBLE! And Bibi alas is definitely not a leader with courage and vision, to take us to better future. Of Livni, Peres, Barak et al there is no sense even to mention - they are self-serving gnomes, political zeros.

The habits of your youth I suspect.

Sure let's blame the settlements. If you repeat a big lie often enough it becomes the truth. As schooled from a second hand source in Haifa.

There is no "right" to live in a trendy location. If haredim were blocking the roads, everyone here would be screaming at them to "get a job!" Well, I do have a job and guess what! I can't afford to live in Tel Aviv, or Manhattan, or London, so I live where it's cheap!

There are many ruined Arab villages left over from 1948, still at least partly intact. Just demolish all of them and build apartments and houses. Double bonus: it blocks the so-called "right of return" and gives more homes.

The problem is not confined to Tel Aviv. It is about housing in most of Israel, it is about living within a reasonable distance of one's employment, it is about not living in a slum, it is about the huge disconnect between wages - especially wages for life-saving professions - and decent non-luxury housing, food, and gas for a non-luxury car. Shame on all of you who don't see that, shame on critics who already have homes from inheritence or early purchases and spout from ignorance and nonJewish lack of empathy, and shame on the news outlets for relentlessly painting a picture of the protests as if it they are a collective Woodstock.

I lived in Petach Tikva and rented there. The prices are too high so I'm in Ariel. That is called reasonable compromise. Housing isn't subsidized here and it isn't a life of luxury, but it is (or was) more affordable. Now even Ariel is getting pricey, but that is mostly because small minded leftists hate to see Jews living in this land period. They are just taking a ride on this. I work 50 hours a week (on vacation this week), my children serve in the army and I afford myself a meat meal and a bottle of wine for Shabbat. This is far from being the "worst crisis in Israel's history". If you think otherwise then I suggest you read a book and start thinking.

Actually Sir, I live in a tiny apartment. We barely make ends meet - I work and goto to school. But we also live in the Merkaz and will do so until I finish graduate school - we will be leaving as soon I am finished. We have no protekzia whatsoever. If we did, My wife would have a decent job and not working multiple part-time jobs. Health clubs? I wish! We don't even own a car and public transportation is now more expensive than it needs to be. So don't start picking on us who see the problems with this movement. You don't know what their story is. Yes, there is a problem in this country. The prices are insane. And the electric company planning to jack up prices by 25% next month (see Globes for that one) doesn't help matters. I want change as much as everyone else does. But it has to be done intelligently. Simply protesting and storming the Knesset will not help - it must be organized. If you really want change, change the voting system to make the government directly accountable to the people and eliminate protekzia completely. Then start building everywhere. Turning the country into a welfare state is not progress. What you will see if that happens is mass Yerida by those who can afford it.