The politics of non-iconic space: Sushi, shisha, and a civic promise in the 2011 summer protests in Israel

Abstract

City streets and squares have become centre stage for political change, in the wave of protests in Europe and the Middle East. Most protest locations are iconic sites of national resonance. Yet this was not the case in the summer 2011 wave of social protests in Israel. Rothschild Boulevard, which was the heart of the protest movement, is a non-iconic street usually associated with the good life of sushi and espresso bars and constant cycle traffic. This unusual choice contrasted sharply with Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and protest sites in Jerusalem – all associated with the politics of the nation. Yet it is exactly the lack of symbolic national resonance, and its down-to-earth association with urban joie de vivre, that enabled the Boulevard to assemble a broad and diverse coalition of protestors, and to transcend the exclusive language of politics in Israel. In a country where the national is identified with the ethnic (Jewish), the pedestrian symbolism of Rothschild allowed protestors to forge a civic language that appealed to Israel’s citizenry and residents, Jews and Arabs, local and migrants.