BAT-YAM, ISRAEL-PALESTINE — Recently, hundreds of anti-capitalist activists gathered in the municipal museum here to hold a “People’s Court” over Israel’s rotten public-housing system, which included scores of testimonies of its working-class victims. Two PL’ers joined this event to show solidarity with the victims and support for their struggle. This lousy system can’t provide even a minimal roof over the heads of thousands of workers.
This “court,” of course, being a workers’ convention while the bosses still hold state power, lacks any real authority to try our class enemies. But exposing the bitter truth about the public housing system is an essential step on the road to organizing a mass struggle against capitalism’s crimes. And the day will come when the working class will seize its destiny — and state power — and will be able to truly judge and punish its exploiters.
Israeli Sexist Laws ‘House’ Workers in Tents
The absurdity in capitalist “public housing” was exposed from the first court testimony. Esther, a single mother suffering from cirrhosis and living in a tent with her son, can’t afford housing in the “free market.” A public housing official told her to “have two or three more children!” Why? Because Israel’s rotten capitalist law allows public housing for single mothers only if they have three or more children. Esther wishes Prime Minister Netanyahu and Finance Minister Shteinitz could live in a tent even for one day rather than in their fancy mansions.
Orit, a single mother working very hard to support herself and her son, suffers from the “rent support” policy enacted by Israeli rulers as a cheap replacement for true public housing. She receives about $450 a month as “aid.” This doesn’t even cover her rent. She suffers under a minimum wage while her boss reaps all the profits.
The children of Amal, an Arab worker from Ramla-Lod (near Tel-Aviv) were thrown on the street due to home foreclosure. Her wages can’t provide adequate food for her seven children, but the officials claim she “does not meet the criteria” for public housing. The authorities have set her former husband against her as an act of divide and conquer.
In most cases, the public housing residents earn only a minimum wage (about $1,200 a month). They are forced to renew their public housing eligibility every two years, paying a fee of roughly $120. Inspectors are sent to their homes to check eligibility, but due to the inspectors’ many mistakes, residents are forced to pay fines which end up in the pockets of the capitalist state.
Welfare can’t pay for an apartment even with state “rent aid.” Sick or disabled workers don’t receive adequate aid. Housing officials mock the residents and unleash the cops on them if they dare complain. There are allegations that officials will provide or improve housing for women workers in exchange for sexual bribes. The public housing companies charge mobster-style interest rates for late payments. They threaten and attack the lives of many men and women. They withhold budgets and let apartments rot. They force illiterate residents to sign contracts they can’t read. They don’t allow the impoverished children of public housing residents to continue to live in their parents’ apartments, while well-off Kibbutz kids can easily retain their parents’ many privileges.
The Israeli State Comptroller reports (October 2009) that 700 public housing apartments stand empty but are unsuitable for human habitation due to neglect. The Finance Ministry claims that if all workers had apartments, the state would “go bankrupt like Greece or Spain.” This capitalist world-view is used to justify political repression.
Housing for the Rich
Meanwhile, the bosses and their servants live the rich life. A tycoon can rent land cheaply from the state — in Israel the state owns 93% of all lands). The Kibbutzim, bastions of Zionist capitalism (formerly under a “socialist” mask and now almost openly capitalist), received many lands free from the state for agricultural use, but now build mansions on these state lands for well-off people. And the government turns a blind eye.
The Amigur public housing company, controlled by the Jewish (Zionist) Agency (JAFI), is actually run by remote control by the Agency’s rich donors, who live in the U.S. These “donors” are nothing but speculators who use public housing apartments in Israel as profitable cash-cows. The apartments were sold not to the residents for a fair price, as the law claims to guarantee, but to various capitalist interests to line the pockets of wealthy U.S. investors.
One PL’er works with the Public Housing Team of the Tarabut movement. She has helped to resist evictions. Seeing all these residents and public housing victims fighting together has been very emotional for her.
Uniting Against the Class Enemy
This “court” numbers a large population of workers and unemployed with many problems: people with health problems; disabled workers; both secular and religious workers; a former drug addict; Jews and Arabs standing together to fight the oppressive capitalist swine. The latter use divide-and-conquer tactics, but that won’t help them this time. We, the workers, are beginning to unite against our class enemy.
Capitalism is a system which cannot guarantee decent housing for billions of workers worldwide. Such a system must be dumped in the trash heap of history. When the working class unites to destroy the capitalist state and erect a workers’ communist state, our resources could be managed fairly and democratically, guaranteeing everyone decent housing, food, healthcare and education at a quality befitting free human beings.
Join the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party. We are fighting for a world without exploitation, oppression and capitalists who grow rich from the work of others!