“However, there is something insincere, even a bit staged, about the movement that was apparently sparked by 25-year-old Daphne Leef, who pitched a tent in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square in the summer of 2011 and then opened a Facebook protest page, where she invited others to join her protest.

The movement that Leef birthed claims to be non-partisan and regards itself as apolitical. Parties and trade unions are not involved.

However, a political rather than social agenda can be discerned, especially in light of revelations that the Leef-led protestors received funding from specific left-wing individuals and organizations like S. Daniel Abraham and the New Israel Fund.

In fact, it turns out that the spontaneous uprising of June 2011 had been planned and orchestrated by The National Left and other left-leaning organizations months earlier.

Indeed, the lack of clear, specific goals and the Israeli media’s focus on a few select activists buttresses the belief by some that genuine public outrage over high inflated costs, high unemployment, low productivity and slow real wage growth has been hijacked by political operatives whose goal is to topple a center-right government and ultimately establish a European-style welfare state in Israel…”

To read the entire essay as it appears in the Times of Israel, click here: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/you-say-you-want-a-revolution-the-2012-summer-protest-season-revs-up/