The tent city got underway to a slow start last Thursday afternoon, but by the evening it was growing, with tents sprouting and carpets laid out on Tel Aviv’s Habima Square down the central meridian on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard. Guitars were playing, and impromptu dance parties coalesced. Food and even clothing were brought in by sympathizers. By the weekend it had turned into a political/media phenomenon.
The atmosphere was Woodstock and the participants decidedly young, including large numbers of university students, but the issue they came to protest was a decidedly middle-aged, middle class one: The high cost of housing and the perceived failure of the government to do anything about it.
Give the gift of hope
We practice what we preach:
accurate, fearless journalism. But we can't do it alone.
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
- On the ground in Gaza, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and more
- Our program trained more than 100 journalists
- Calling out fake news and reporting real facts
Join us.
Support The Media Line. Save democracy.
Home prices have jumped more than 60% in the past two-and-half years and more than 15% in the 12 months through May. Knight Frank, a British real estate consulting firm, said Israeli housing prices showed the fourth-largest year-on-year increase among 50 countries surveyed, behind Hong Kong, India and Taiwan.
“It’s definitely a problem for home buyers. Real wages have dropped since 2008 and prices have gone up 63%– it’s pretty easy to do the math,” Jonathan Katz, an Israel-based macro-economist for the London-based bank HCBC, told The Media Line. “I think any market that goes up over 60% in two-and-a-half years is a bit frothier. I’d say it’s bubbly.”
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=32722 [4]