Thousands have rallied in six major Zionist cities including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in protest against tax hikes and other austerity measures presented as part of the entity’s new budget.

Thousands have rallied in six major Zionist cities including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in protest against tax hikes and other austerity measures presented as part of the entity’s new budget.

Rallies on Saturday took place in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Modiin, Rishon Lezion and Ashdod with more than 12,000 people protesting across the occupied territories.

Protesters in Tel Aviv carried banners reading "Take from the tycoons, not us," referring to the plan to raise workers' income tax by 1.5 percentage points while increasing corporate taxes by one point.

However, Zionist Finance Minister Yair Lapid insisted that caution is needed in order not to drive employers abroad.

"Who are you demonstrating against? Are your demonstrating so that you can lose your jobs, so that the economy will collapse? You are demonstrating against yourselves," he said in an interview aired on Friday by privately owned Channel 2 television.
 
Protesters were calling the Zionist February election the biggest lie in the entity’s history, demanding that the elected parties fulfill their promises.

One of the leaders of the 2011 social protest, MK Itzik Shmuli, was marching with the crowd saying that Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s plan will severely hurt the working man and will trample the weak sectors of the economy.

"To block it, we will wage a persistent battle on the streets and in the halls of the Knesset,” Shmuli told the Zionist daily Haaretz.

“Israelis don't expect their finance minister to be a socialist, but they don't expect him to be a populist, either. [They expect him] only to fulfill the promises he has been making up until last week,” he added.

The austerity plan, which the Zionist cabinet is expected to discuss on Monday, includes a $1.8 billion cut in government’s 2013 budget and a further $5 billion cut during 2014.

The 2011 protests saw record numbers of Zionists from all walks of life come together in unusual solidarity, peaking on September 3, when half a million settlers took to the streets.