A short bus ride downtown takes me to a well-publicised rally on the upmarket Rothschild Boulevard, outside Independence Hall. Here, 63 years ago, David ben Gurion declared Israel's independence in a discreet ceremony, as the British Mandate came to a close and the neighbouring Arab armies were massing. Israelis celebrate Independence Day according to the Jewish calendar, though Palestinian (and many Israeli) Arabs commemorate the Gregorian anniversary as the Nakba ("catastrophe"). 

These protesters, however, are demanding a new independence: from the kibush ("occupation"). They are calling for a return to the armistice borders of 1949 — "the borders we always dreamed about" — a speaker's reference to the longstanding Zionist dream to return to the land of Israel, apparently forgetting the War of Independence that cost the nascent state 1 per cent of its tiny population and expanded Israel's borders by 50 per cent more than those stipulated by the UN's Partition Plan, which the Jews had accepted but the Arabs rejected.

In anticipation of the Palestinian Authority's unilateral declaration of statehood in September, they chant: "Two states for two peoples." A sign reads, "Two Jerusalems. One Peace." A speaker describes the current Netanyahu government as "evil". The demonstration is small — barely a hundred people — but punches above its weight because of the attendees: several celebrities and 17 recipients of the Israel Prize, the country's most prestigious award. A counter-protest is even smaller, but both are composed of secular people. This is Tel Aviv, after all.

One of the counter-protesters has a megaphone. "You want to make peace with terrorists?" he exclaims. A speaker at the main rally demands from the police that they stop the counter-protesters from disturbing them, "like you didn't stop Yigal Amir," a reference to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassin. The rhetoric is vitriolic. On reflection, though, it is probably no worse than a trade union rally in Britain or an American Tea Party protest.

I speak to a bearded, bespectacled protester in a turquoise polo shirt. His white cap reads: "We won't shut up." That much is clear from his response to my question regarding what he expects to happen to the settlers: "They will return. Those who want to remain should be allowed to do so," as citizens of the Palestinian Arab state. He explains that, in his view, some 70 per cent of them are there because of government incentives, including cheap housing. Only 30 per cent are true "believers". Indeed, many of the others are foreigners duped into moving there, but without the perks they will all leave. This, he insists, was always known by Israeli politicians, most of whom do not live there because they know it cannot last, instead shifting the price to the settlers themselves, and to the rest of the Israeli people, including the very poor, who do not appreciate the reality.