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Who is taking part in the general strike in Israel?
As we’ve been reporting, Israel’s biggest labour union, Histadrut, has called for a general strike starting at 6am local time (3GMT) to pressure Netanyahu and secure the release of captives held in Gaza.
The Times of Israel and Reuters news agency said others backing the work stoppage include:
- The Israel Business Forum, which represents most private-sector workers from 200 of the country’s largest companies
- companies from Israel’s tech sector such as Wix, Fiverr, HoneyBook, Playtika, Riskified, AppsFlyer, Monday.com, AI21 Labs and Lemonade
- workers at Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main international transport hub, which will be closed from 8am (05:00 GMT)
- Israel Bar Association, whose chief Amit Becher called on “all lawyers to go on strike”
- the Teacher’s Union, a branch of the Histadrut, which said all K-12 schools in Israel will only be open until 11:45am local time, except schools for special needs students
- The Association of University Heads, which said Israel’s research universities will also join the economic shutdown, though some scheduled exams will still be had
- Tel Aviv’s municipality, which provides services to the country’s largest economic hub
- the Manufacturers Association of Israel, which accused the government of failing in its “moral duty” to bring the captives back alive
- Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who called for the economy to be shut down to pressure “Netanyahu and the death cabinet”.
Will the mass protests in Israel make a difference?
Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace, described the mass protests in Israel as well as the upcoming strike action as a “big deal”.
“It seems this is the biggest set of protests that we’ve seen since the beginning of this round of horrific assaults on Gaza that began after October 7. The question will be whether the quantitative increase – it’s now up to about 500,000 [protesters] apparently – whether that becomes a qualitative difference in the impact on government decisions,” she told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC.
“They’re talking about a strike that would involve the health sector, shutting down the international airport which is very key for the Israeli economy, as well as there’s been calls from the tech sector and from manufacturing to shut down factories and shut down the the tech world. Those are huge components of the Israeli economy,” she said.
“So that means there will be a huge impact on the government – whether it’s enough to change the position of Netanyahu and his closest allies remains very unclear. But that is a very big step to take and […] that hasn’t happened in at least a couple of years.”
US needs to stop arming Israel to force change in Netanyahu’s stance on Gaza
More from Bennis at the Institute for Policy Studies. The analyst said US pressure is needed in combination with mass protests to force the Israeli government to change its tack on the war in Gaza.
“Clearly the best way to bring all the hostages home, to get the Palestinian prisoners released – some 10,000 of them who are being held illegally inside Israeli prisons, 6,000 of them without any charges, and stopping this genocidal war that Israel is waging in Gaza – the best way to do that is for the United States to stop sending weapons,” Bennis told Al Jazeera.
“Because whatever statements come from the president, from the vice president from anyone else, from Congress – none of it matters as long as the United States continues to send weapons that make it possible for Israel to continue this war. That’s the one qualitative distinction that can happen and we seen no indication yet that it’s about to.”
