Protesters can’t decide on leadership as big march nears

"There those who think Daphne Leef isn't capable of running things, there are others who say she isn't capable of sharing power," says activist.

By BEN HARTMAN
Jerusalem social justice protest 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Jerusalem social justice protest 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Tent city protesters from Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv and other campsites across the country held a meeting Sunday night to discuss ways to improve communications among their campsites as they prepare for the “Million Man March” in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday night.
This meeting comes following the break-up last week of a meeting scheduled to determine the face of the movement’s leadership. Held in Ashdod last Friday, activists intended to choose a specific number of representatives from tent cities across the country, as well as a set number of activists from the group of original protesters central to the Rothschild tent city.
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In the end the meeting adjourned with participants agreeing that a future national leadership would include 10 leaders of tent cities across the country, representatives from the Arab sector, and an undetermined number of leaders from the original group of seven. Attempts to create a leadership made up of 10 nationwide tent city leaders and three from the group of founders was scuttled by the latter, particularly by tent city protest movement founder Daphni Leef, who reportedly shot down the power-sharing leadership structure that would limit the representation of the founders, an activist present at the meeting told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
“Inez,” an activist with a nationwide social interest group, said the meeting was “tumultuous” due to the fact that “there are many people who want to change the way the movement’s decisions are made. The periphery and even many of the people on Rothschild don’t have any access to the decision-making process. The seven founders have had a disproportionate amount of power in the decision-making process up to today.”
Inez said she believes that when a decision on the leadership of the movement is eventually made it will be one of two possibilities: either there will be an agreement to have 10 national tent city leaders together with all seven of the founders or that people will decide that Daphni Leef is not ready to accept any of these solutions and she resigns.”
She added, “There are those people who think she is not capable of running things and there are others who say she is not capable of sharing the decision-making process. This protest is making people want to be part of the country’s decision- making process and they look and feel that even within the protest movement itself they can’t be part of the decision- making process, and they are frustrated.”
Also Sunday, activists blocked the Shalom interchange outside the Ministry of the Interior in Tel Aviv for 15 minutes, as part of a protest act that included an additional six junctions across the country.
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