Whether or not it interests Ehud Olmert, university and college students continue to strike. The strike entered its twentieth day yesterday. One demonstration follows another, sometimes in Jerusalem, sometimes in Tel Aviv and sometimes in front of the Emek Yezreel College. The second semester of the current academic year is a near loss, and the atmosphere in university halls is depressing. However, strike leaders do not intend to surrender - not after they sent thousands of students into the streets and some sustained blows from the police.

The Israeli student public appears to have awoken from its slumber. Yet everyone else seems to be renouncing responsibility: politicians who refuse to engage in negotiations, media that disappear and only cover demonstrations when they turn violent, newspaper reporters who explain how the students erred, faculty heads who threaten to cancel the semester altogether, colleges that seek to break the strike, a majority of faculty members who do not support the struggle and openly declare their lack of support or express it by means of internal correspondence and even some students who oppose the strike.

The Israeli student has always been branded as apathetic, and many claim that students only demonstrate when their own pockets are in danger of being hit. Common knowledge maintains that Israeli students arrive at university older than their peers abroad, tired, following military service, and already responsible for other aspects of their lives (earning a living, serving in military reserve units and starting a family). It is no wonder that the Israeli student lacks the energy for youthful rebellion.

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Suddenly, a strike, defined as an all-encompassing battle, breaks out. Not only does the strike continue, but it expands to include an ever-increasing social agenda. Students no longer speak only of reducing tuition fees but also of narrowing social gaps, of access to higher education for all citizens, of damage to academic quality and independence. They wear red shirts and call the struggle the Red Revolution. One might observe this skeptically and say strike leaders are paving paths to political careers, that conflicts and disagreements exist among students, internal politics are rife, demands are unrealistic and not well-formulated, and that the agenda is being made to fit.

Less elitist than meets the eye

In any case, the current strike smacks of social rebellion. Who are the founders of this struggle? The two leaders are Itai Shonshein, chairman of the National Students Union, 29-years-old and a student at the Tel Aviv College of Administration, and Itai Barda, chairman of the College Students Union, 27-years-old and a student at the Emek Yezreel College. The fact that both are studying at colleges, rather than universities, indicates that the struggle is less elitist than it appears.

The inner circle of demonstrators includes between 4,000-7,000 students, most of them undergraduates, some college and some university students. Most of them are middle- or upper-middle class. A minority are Arabs and Russian immigrants.

What are they demanding? Freezing tuition hikes, returning the NIS 1 billion which was cut from the higher education budget, and disbanding the Shochat Committee, established in November of 2006 to respond to the crisis in higher education.

"It seems quite naive to me to place the burden of ambitions for a social uprising among the Israeli public on the shoulders of students. Why should students be the ones to protest increasing social gaps and launch a revolution?" asks Dr. Gadi Taub of the Communications Department at the Hebrew University School of Public Policy. "I am happy about the strike and the involvement, but one must not expect them to wage a comprehensive social struggle. This is not a group with political interests, and in fact students are nurtured by elitist values that strive for individualism in a free market. So, why should they suddenly stand up and oppose that? There is no Left in Israel, and it is not clear that we should expect students to invent one.

"It is hard to characterize students as a separate group. They are typically members of the middle and upper-middle classes, but that is a very heterogenic population. And, in addition, the student status is temporary," says Taub.

Taub supports the students. But more than a few faculty members resent the strike. "I share the opinion that students in Israel are an ultra-apathetic public that does not work on behalf of anything that does not affect their own pockets," says Dr. Na'ama Sheffi, head of the Communications Department at Sapir College. "I'm afraid that they also don't know what they are fighting for. The slogans are unfounded and they change every minute. First, they opposed tuition hikes. Then, they saw that that was unpopular and they started working to return the funds that were taken from the higher education budget. Their struggle should be aimed at equality in education in Israel in general. If there was collaboration between the teachers and the students strikes that included the aspirations of the academic faculty it might be possible to make some progress on behalf of education in Israel. Now, everyone is fighting for their own private interests."

Leader of the pack

Nonetheless, perhaps it is still worth listening to the leader of this struggle. The struggle's small, crowded offices, packed with paper and take-out food, are located on Hashalom Road in Tel Aviv. Shonshein stands in the office, being interviewed for a local Russian-language television station. He looks like he hasn't slept in several nights. He spent one night last week, in the Ichilov General Hospital Emergency Room, after he was hit by a policeman during the highly publicized demonstration at the Tel Aviv Museum plaza. He is now waiting for an imminent phone call from the Prime Minister's Office - perhaps negotiations will be renewed.

Shonshein talks like a leader. He speaks about social involvement and caring. He promises that the battle won't end with tuition; that there will be continuity; that students will leave their mark on Israeli society. One must only wait and see.

"The real test is the test of time," he says. "When we began the struggle, half a year ago, no one believed we would hold out. They said, 'Your leadership is divided, your leaders are operators, they're politicized.'"

And you have internal problems.

"But the fact is that none of us gave up. We have been a united front for half a year. There are internal difficulties, but we lend each other a hand because we share a common goal."

And you really do have political ambitions.

"I don't deny it. Public action has been my burning passion, throughout the years, from fourth grade to all the social action I engaged in during my college years. It burns in me and I believe that, after I finish my studies, I will play a public role and be involved in politics. That isn't a bad word. It is something real that derives from values. I'm proud of it."

Shonshein is a member of the Labor Party Central Committee. "I believe in the platform. My grandfather was a red Mapainik [member of the former Mapai left-wing political party]. I live those values. But I opposed [Education minister, MK and Labor member] Yuli Tamir. We hung signs that said, 'The Labor Party Hurts Students.' Did anyone in the party actually support us? The party didn't help us at all. Neither did Likud or Kadima. I didn't see a single MK come to our aid. Only when they saw a mass demonstration and murderous beatings, and when it made the news broadcasts, it was suddenly easy for them to demonstrate support, but we built this entire struggle alone, with no support from anyone, just us.

"Besides that, every sector wakes up the moment it gets hit in the pocket. When the Histadrut [labor federation] holds a general strike, it's also over wages."

Do you believe that your struggle will go beyond the issue of tuition?

"Unequivocally. I am saying that I have societal goals far beyond tuition. There are many social injustices and at the moment, I can't spread myself out to all of them, but the moment we finish this, we'll think of additional things. We have a large project with Yad Vashem, collecting witness accounts from Holocaust survivors, a project with bereaved families, joint projects with the European students' associations, but this interests the media less."

Shonshein grew up in Petah Tikva. Today he rents an apartment in Rishon Lezion.

"I come from a very average family. I haven't received an agora from my parents since I was 14. I live alone, pay rent by myself, bought my car by myself, pay for my degree by myself, I worked at two jobs from morning until night before I reached the position I hold now. So why am I thought of as middle class? Just about everyone around me is like me. This is a struggle of Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, of Russians and Ethiopians, it's a struggle of everyone. A student is a student.

"It's true that there's a phenomenon of apathy throughout Israel; society, and that hasn't passed over the students. With everything the State of Israel has been going through in recent years - an intifada, captive [soldiers], war, improper management of the country, politicians' promises that go unfulfilled - the public has turned apathetic. The society of students is a good society - these are young people, intellectuals. They have values, they study and they think, but what can you do? As opposed to our European colleagues, we aren't 18- and 21-year-olds. We've done the army, we're a bit more experienced, we've let off all the energies of youth. Still, though, these energies exist. It takes a lot of time to awaken this bear, but when it awakens, it's very powerful.

"Suddenly, the Shochat Committee decides that tuition will be raised by dozens of percentages. They've decided to cover all the deficits of higher education on the backs of the students, simply to take it from the student's pocket and transfer it to the institutions. This capitalist neo-liberal policy cannot work in the state of Israel.

"The student leadership supports a policy of welfare, at least in the area of schools and higher education. We want everyone to be able to study. We believe that if there are more academics and intellectuals, this will raise the per capita product, expand the amount of income tax revenue, and it will be possible through these funds to finance the [needs of] the disadvantaged. We are looking at the long term. Strengthening Israel is not just a matter of the army and defense, it is largely the country's human capital."