As a late-July heat wave rolls up Israel from the Sinai desert,
the country has been seized by a different kind of Egyptian fever:
massive and unrelenting social protests taking over almost every last inch of public space.
What started as two unrelated social actions over a month ago
— a Facebook campaign against inflated cottage cheese prices (an Israeli staple) and a doctors’ strike
— has blossomed into a nationwide, multipronged collective revolt
unprecedented in recent Israeli history.
It has also caught the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unprepared
as he faces what is turning out to be the first serious threat to his government’s stability.