Social Unrest: Britain and Israel

Both Britain and Israel are in the news because of social unrest--British mobs continue to throw Molotov cocktails, set fire to cars and shops, loot smashed storefronts, attack police and innocent bystanders, steal, and commit murder.

The left blames the rioting on disenfranchised youth responding to government austerity programs. The right blames the social unrest on socialism--bad behavior should be expected when class warfare is encouraged and people expect to be supported without having to pay for it.

In Israel thousands continue to demonstrate in tent cities, calling for social justice:

Protesters are uniting over the high costs of housing, rearing children, fuel, electricity and food but the dominant slogan has been: "The people demand social justice."

A greater percentage of Israelis than British are involved in their respective protests, but there is much less violence in Israel. Like Britain, Israel has a large middle class as well as rich and poor, and Israel had a socialist past. People in both countries look to the government for a solution to their problems. Before the UN declaration of statehood, Britain controlled the area and many Israeli institutions are based on a British model.

Why then are the Israeli protests peaceful? I believe there are a few reasons. First, most Israelis are not religious but are still taught Bible and ethics in the primary grades of school. Second, almost all Israelis, men and women, have served their country, creating a population devoted to the state of Israel and bringing into society a general feeling of unity among the citizenry. Last, I believe Israeli society does not break down as neatly, as it once did, into the earlier fault lines of religious versus secular, Ashkenazic versus Sephardic, and Arab versus Jew. Britain, on the other hand, must still contend with a much more heterogeneous society--diverse peoples brought from 200 years of empire.

Postscript: The Israeli daily Haaretz saw the Israeli protests as predominantly a middle class affair. Predictably, the left-wing paper looked at little except class and race divisions. Link here.

Postscript late 2012: The European left and the Jewish problem here.