At first I wasn't going to attend, as it sounds dull, and the politics is reactionary as fuck. But then, instead of ending the public meeting by going home, the students decided to start marching and block streets. That's when I was that things were picking up, so I joined up with them.
The slogans were pretty reactionary and dull ("No nation without education" --- yeah, like that's a bad thing now? Along with some personalized demands from the PM and the Minister of Education, and some other nonsense about how important education is for our country, blah blah blah), but there was a gathering momentum, and the cops couldn't keep it in check. Eventually people started calling for going to Ayalon, the main highway in the Tel Aviv area, so there was an advance in that direction. The cops finally managed to get some cavalry over there, but there were too many protestors, who managed to break police lines and keep on marching.
Then, at a main intersection still inside the city, very close to the highway entrance, some student leaders started calling for people to have a sit-in. But it didn't work, 'cause people just kept going to the highway! Eventually some of the protestors managed to block the highway for a few minutes, before the police finally got serious riot troops in there, and got things under control.
Now, ideologically, this whole protest, indeed, this whole struggle, is probably not going to amount to anything in the short term. But I think that some students will have been radicalized by the experience of beating the cops and blocking the highway without getting seriously hurt (I should really find that mounted cop and tell him that, despite his fears for our safety, we managed quite well, thank you very much). And the fact that people disobeyed student leaders telling them to stop, back down, not proceed into the highway, et cetera, means that there is a militancy there beyond the leaders` control.
I've been at many failed actions, and it was quite uplifting to participate in a successful mass struggle, even as a hitchhiker, even for a short time, even if the alleged goal is kind of pointless and reactionary, rather than the Revolution.
(End testimonial)
Some links:
Ynet article, most information is about the gathering before the march itself, which had a bunch of celebrities and mild leftist politicians.
Those are all the links for now. More to come when English sites become more updated.
