Record-breaking Israeli rally caps off wave of protests

Billed as the biggest rally in the country's history, hundreds of thousands of Israelis staged marches calling for a more equitable distribution of wealth and for social reforms.

The rally, held simultaneously in Tel Aviv and other cities around the country, was the high point of a protest movement that began spontaneously two months ago and that, despite initial scepticism, has won a succession of small victories and promises from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of more significant changes to come.

The organisers had called for a March of the Million to impress on the nation's leaders that the movement's demands have political weight. Few believed that number would be achieved and it wasn't.

The organisers claimed that more than 400,000 took part. Police put the figure at more than 300,000.

Nevertheless, this was said to be the largest rally in Israel's history and confirmed that the protesters' demand for reducing the clout of the super-wealthy was a sentiment that politicians can not ignore.

The Israeli reform movement has been widely seen as a spinoff of the Arab Spring in the sense that latent sentiment erupted spontaneously, although in Israel's case, peacefully.

Signs put up by some of the protesters saluted the demonstrators of Tahrir Square in Cairo. Others, however, see the Israeli demonstration resembling more the student rebellions in Europe in 1968.

The Israeli movement began at the beginning of the northern summer when university students and others began camping out in tents on the main boulevards of Tel Aviv to protest against the high price of apartment rentals. Soon there were tens of thousands of tents in cities across the country to protest a variety of inequities.

About the same time, a small group of people began calling via Facebook for a boycott of cottage cheese because of prices far higher than abroad. The dairy companies, which initially ignored the protest, caved in when the broad public stopped buying cottage cheese for a few weeks.

When a few students at Tel Aviv University announced this month that they would boycott a large supermarket chain, the CEO said that he was lowering the prices of 30 items by 20 per cent. A large competitor followed suit without being asked.

Protests at rising petrol prices obliged a reluctant National Infrastructure Minister to lower the profit margin of petrol retailers over their loud protests.

Netanyahu, an advocate of globalisation and a free market, was quick to understand that instead of being a summertime frivolity, the protests tapped into a deep reservoir of resentment over the disconnect between the wealthy and the Government on the one hand and the public on the other.

He promised to take steps to bring housing prices down and, to the surprise of many, he appointed a highly respected economist, Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, to meet protesters and to make recommendations.

The Harvard-trained Trajtenberg said Israel has forgotten its middle class and the process of privatisation, which has enriched insiders, has left the broad public feeling abused.