A status posted by Knesset member Dov Khenin on his Facebook page on April 17, succeeded in garnering some 6,000 shares. Khenin, a much-esteemed, combative social justice activist, belongs to the Hadash Party — the only Jewish-Arab party in the Knesset. In his post, which almost instantly became the hottest thing on the Israeli net, Khenin called for raising minimum wages from NIS 23 ($6.61) an hour to NIS 30 ($8.62) an hour. In sharp, incisive language, Khenin explained that this was a vital social justice battle to minimize the “working poor” phenomenon and so that “workers here won’t be slaves.”
In an approximate Facebook calculation, about half a million people were exposed to Khenin’s call to arms. This is way beyond the public interest exhibited in the talks with the Palestinians, even when compared to the very popular Facebook page of Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett.