cost of living

Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz speaks at the annual World Zionist Conference, in Jerusalem on November 02, 2017. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90)

The future is the center: Meet the parties shaking up Israeli politics

Caught between growing extremism on the right and a battered left, Israelis are flocking to a new crop of centrist politicians who prioritize economic issues over solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Galia Ben Haim discussed her political opinions while driving back from jail. In addition to her day job, she volunteers at a women’s prison. The inmates, she says, committed their…

By Dahlia Scheindlin January 28, 2019

Activists re-establish the protest tent on Rothschild Boulevard, three years after the 2011 social protest movement. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: Activists re-establish Tel Aviv social protest tent

Photos by Oren Ziv / Activestills.org Four years after the 2011 social protest movement brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets, the tents are back on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard. Approximately 200 people re-established the tent protest Sunday evening, in a demonstration against the high cost of living and housing in Israel. Shay…

By Activestills March 1, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo by Activestills.org)

In response to damning housing report, Netanyahu demands Israelis think about Iran

What do you do when facing backlash from all sides of the political spectrum? Blame it on the Ayatollah. A much-anticipated housing report published Wednesday evening by State Comptroller Yosef Shapira blamed the Netanyahu government for failing to properly deal with the rising costs of housing in Israel. According to Shapira, poor government planning and…

By Edo Konrad February 25, 2015

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Sima Kavlo, living in the apartment for 34 years, after her parent passed away. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Beyond the market and the state: Horizons for a new kind of public housing

The choice between entrusting the right of people to a house either to the hands of a violent government or to capitalists is futile and dispiriting. But is it possible to free ourselves of this stranglehold? A conversation with Sebastian Schipper about a new possibility for public housing (and what it is like to pay…

By Haokets February 15, 2014

Palestinian youth blocked traffic in Bethlehem in a protest against the rising cost of living and criticizing the Palestinian Authority leadership, September 8, 2012. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Photo essay: Palestinians protest high prices, Israeli economic control

A wave of protests in the occupied Palestinian territories against the high cost of living has raised the obvious question as to whether the ‘Arab Spring’ has arrived in Palestine. Since demonstrations started in the first week of September, Palestinians have regularly blocked roads in major West Bank cities, protesting the high prices for food,…

By Activestills September 17, 2012

A mask protester wears a sign reading " we did not forget the Mofaz daysl " (referring to earlier protest against a planned visit of Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz) during a protest marching to the Muquata, the PA headquarters; in the West bank city of Ramallah to protest the rising cost of living, especially fuel and food, and calling for the resignation of the Palestinian National Authority's Salam Fayyad and the end of the Paris protocol, September 11, 2012. Protesters condemned continuous increases in taxes, cuts to public sector wages and the oppressive rule of the Paris Protocol on Economic Relations, an agreement signed with Israel in 1994, which laid out the economic relations between Israel and the PA within the Oslo framework, and which turned out to be mostly about ensuring Israel's economic domination of the Palestinian market and has prevented the development of an independent Palestinian economy. Some protesters also called for the end of the Oslo accords.
(photo: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

A week in photos: September 6-12

Palestinian protests against the cost of living and PA leadership grew in size and intensity, as weekly demonstrations continued and threats of demolition and settler violence remain a fact of life under occupation. Israelis also took to the streets over media and social justice issues. Activestills images tell the stories of the week.

By Activestills September 13, 2012

Palestinians push taxis along Hebron Road in the West Bank town of Bethlehem to protest the high cost of fuel and food, September 10, 2012. (photo: RRB/Activestills.org)

PHOTO: Palestinian taxi and truck drivers protest high fuel and food prices

Though rumors of a general strike that would have shut down all traffic and closed businesses in Bethlehem and other West Bank cities failed to materialize, streets have been blocked in several locations as taxi and truck drivers took to the streets to protest high fuel and food prices. Reports from Ramallah, Tulkarem, Nablus, Hebron,…

By Activestills September 10, 2012