Around ten thousand protesters marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, marking the one-year anniversary of Israel’s social justice protests (while hundreds more marched in cities across the country).
Israelis fill Tel Aviv's streets, marking one year of social justice protests.
The protests, which continue to focus on social and economic inequalities within Israel, have also been infused with more political tones of late. However, tonight’s march was rather uneventful up until the march’s conclusion.
It was at that point a 52-year-old Israeli man, Moshe Silman, set himself on fire after handing out a letter to fellow protesters, part of which read:
The State of Israel has stolen from me and robbed me, left me with nothing…
Two committees from the Ministry of Housing have rejected me, despite the fact that I have undergone a stroke and was granted 100% work disability…
I blame the State of Israel.
I blame Bibi Netanyahu and [Minister of Finance] Yuval Steinitz, both scum, for the humiliation that disenfranchised citizens go through day in and day out, that take from the poor and give to the rich.
Protesters extinguish flames that engulfed Moshe Silman after he set himself on fire.
A crowd of social justice protesters gathered outside the hospital where Silman — whose condition is dire — was taken, and a march has already been planned for Sunday from his home to municipal offices in Haifa.
On Silman, Haaretz added this:
Ofer Barkan, a social protest activist from Haifa, said that the man was an activist in last year’s protests. “We met him last summer,” Barkan said, “he was a completely normative person who lived in Tel Aviv but then his business went under. He became a cab driver and suffered a stroke which left him unemployed. He moved from Tel Aviv to Haifa because he could not afford life in the city.” According to Barkan, he had threatened to light himself on fire multiple times. “We felt that he was close to do it, but we didn’t know,” he added.
Silman’s self-immolation has quickly become the central story in Israel, and its resonance is worth considering. Self-destructive protests, particularly those in which individuals intentionally harm themselves, reflect back to us the unspeakable desperation of the powerless such that we are unable to look away.
We can turn away from the homeless. From those barely able to survive in the shadows. But we cannot turn away from a hunger striker, growing emaciated in public, and we cannot avert our eyes from one who has set himself ablaze, no matter the mental state that may have led to such an act.
For their suffering not only becomes a painful metaphor for all that is wrong, it also becomes a shocking visual image, branded on the psyche, that symbolizes what must be repaired.
There is no question that Israel’s social justice protests have returned. And while questions remain as to how far they will spread and whether they will co-opt geopolitical issues (such as the occupation), the question that remains this evening is this: how much power and societal impact will Silman’s act of desperation have in the days and weeks ahead?
May he recover, and soon.
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There is terribly something wrong with an individual who does this t himself, He was giving up on life and tt is just wrong to respect that action. I have a friend in Israel who gave up his business after being diagnosed with lung cancer, he has not given up on life
i felt struck in my heart hearing about the tragic act this man had to commit in order to speak out strongly as possible how badly he experienced his situation. unfortunately it represents many similar situations around the country and world wide.
i hope with all my heart that it will speak to the people of israel and be valued for the meaning it has. I fear that the cynicism and disconnectedness that plagues most of this society will win out and reduce this immense moment to insignificance.
disconnect (disinterest, disrespect for differences) is the greatest danger to our people, to all people today, and most sadly, in israel, as well.
if there were more social responsibility in neighborhoods and families, this man’s cause would have at least been taken up by those around him, irrespective of the government’s response. especially so since we know how disconnected politicians are from their people, as well,
to my understanding, unless we reconnect socially, locally and in every grass-roots way possible, no change will happen, many people in similar situations to mr silman will continue to wither and die more slow deaths of isolation, worry, exhaustion and unnecessary illnesses.
may mr. silman’s great sacrifice be rewarded with comfort and healing, as well as respect, compassion and social awakening it speaks to. that is the only way these tragedies and the cruel unnecessary poverty can be remedied.
This is not an act that should be acknowledged or respected. he may have suffered and my not have been getting the financial assistance that he needed, but look what he’s done to himself? He already had a Stroke a sure ay at a young age, and lost his business. Now he is going to suffer for the rest of his life with burns over much his body. Was it really worth it? I hope you do not hank him for what he did?
There is no doubt that reform is needed that includes more affordable hoeing. Israel is a victim of its own success him the biotech and high tech world. People who are in e industry as inventors and workers are doing very well and their del earned income is pushing the cost of living up. yes, I say well earned, because the a re producing something of great value. But there is a sector of the population tat is being left behind in an economy that demands highly skilled workers and they have to be assisted in and trained to get a piece of that pie.
Acts such as Silman’s are performed out of a desperation or despair or urgency that is outside the realm of what we consider rational…. We can criticize such an act rationally but if we do not open our hearts to acknowledge the extreme pain the person is conveying in their attempt to call out for help or speak truth to power so pointedly, we are numbing ourselves to our own connection with others who suffer from similar pain throughout society. Vietnamese monks decades ago, the shocking number of Indian farmers swallowing the pesticides that symbolize the poisoning of their lives and cultures by heartless multinationals, the South Korean farmer stabbing himself in protesting the harm being done to fellow farmers, the Tunisian man whose self-immolation it can be argued was a tipping point in the ‘Arab Spring’….. We can argue til blue in the face the pros and cons of suicide as political act, but when these acts are committed, we are kidding ourselves if we ignore or belittle or dissect the psychological health or sickness of the individual driven to such desperation.
It seems to me, the healthiest response is to align with our individual and collective conscience to discover what part we ourselves may play to redress the injustices and harms done and to co-create on whatever levels we are able a more equitable and compassionate society. What action or shift in our attitude might make a positive difference today? Our disconnect with the pain of negative impacts experienced by others and by nature itself needs to be overcome, as we are profoundly connected…. Thich Nhat Hahn would say we ‘inter-ARE’, actually. Therefore, our work in these times of financial pathology, ecological destruction, enormous injustices, extreme narcissism and perpetual war and violence is to counter these separating influences with the power of our compassion and intelligence. This is no softheaded new age pablum, but a call to the conscience and bravery that is both our birthright and challenge, but every step to awaken from our collective trance of learned helplessness is a step in the right direction.