Thousands are expected to take to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, gathering at Rabin Square, to cry out against massive unemployment, repeated failures to deliver aid to those ordered by the state to stop working, and a leadership that they say is uncaring about the concerns affecting the lives of the people they claim to embrace. “We hold the Israeli government and the man leading it responsible for the failure, even now, of carrying out financial aid packages and call on the government to pull itself together,” they said in a press release on Saturday. One thousand businesses across the country mean to show solidarity by closing for the evening in what protest organizers claim is a “non-political” protest focused on the economy. On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Israel Katz met with a delegation composed of the various groups that lead the protest, among them students, the self-employed, and restaurant owners, to hear their demands and perhaps cancel the protest. While some agreed to give the administration a few more days to see if the July aid package will be a success, many others refused to back down until they see results. “I would not have taken part in that meeting in a million years, by my own choice,” said the owner of the Barby music club, Shaul Mizrhai to The Jerusalem Post. “Every group among us has its own representative, in our case we sent Ronen Mili, who is a famous figure in the nightlife scene.” Mizrhai was so offended by what he sees as the government “humiliating the public and cheating us” that he held a hunger strike for five days outside of the Prime Minister’s residency in Jerusalem. He told the Post that “not eating is easy, the hard part is when you attempt to eat afterwards, it hurts like hell.” “If one could eat promises,” he says, “we would all be overweight. We are fed up with words, slogans and figures that are floating in the air.”He slammed Netanyahu for allegedly pretending not to know benefits were not delivered to the unemployed, claiming, “I know from inside sources he gets updates every three days.” Netanyahu told protesters he was under the impression “the money is delivered at the press of a button” when they register for aid and laid the blame at the feet of the Finance Ministry. “He cannot treat public money as if it is his,” Mizrhai told the Post. “It is our money, if they fail to deliver now we will not remain silent.” He also said that he was able to host live musical performances while ensuring public health, making it even more frustrating to be told he can’t open. “Only one person got sick and we were the ones who traced him and we updated the audience they have nothing to fear,” he said. “People leave a rock concert with such joy in their eyes, so how can we, of all businesses, be non-essential?” Shai Berman, the General Manager of the Association of Restaurant and Bar Owners, chose to participate in the meeting.“We told Netanyahu we will not stop the protest,” he told the Post. “Up until now they held several press conferences about aid packages, but the execution had been lacking.” When asked about chef Haim Cohen and others, who say the Finance Ministry meant to impose on restaurants such difficult health restrictions they would opt to close on their own accord and so would not be able to get support, he said that “this is an academic discussion because right now the clients don’t want to come anyway. There is a campaign to scare the public despite restaurants being at the bottom of the list as places people are infected (with coronavirus) in.” He said the health regulations, which stipulate a universal maximum number of patrons indoors and outdoors for all eateries no matter their size, “is like closing this entire sector down.”Netanyahu and Katz presented on Thursday an aid package standing at NIS 80 b. meant to extend unemployment benefits until June 2021. The plan also includes a scaled support to businesses based on the amount of proven losses they suffered during the coronavirus pandemic and is said to include, at a later point, vocational training, seeing as some lines of work, among them tourism and cultural events, are now extremely uncertain. Tour guide Moran Wesiberg, circus acrobat Jenia Tadmor and bus driver Moti Zorger are among the working men and women meant to speak tonight. The evening will include a moment of silence, honoring those who took their own lives when faced with debts they could not pay. Katz told the press asking his response to protesters blasting him for a previously failed policy. Seeing as only a third of his June aid package (NIS 4 b.) ever made it to those in need, he “embraces them”.
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