Demonstrations and a General Strike in Israel in Protest of Netanyahu Insanity

An Israeli court ordered the premature end of a general strike called by the Histradut trade union confederation on Sept. 2, but not before it had closed local governments, schools and businesses across Israel and disrupted flights in and out of Ben Gurion airport for some eight hours. The strike had been called by Histadrut head Arnon Bar-David to support hundreds of thousands of protesters who had gathered the evening before in dozens of locations, blocking highways and intersections, to demand that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages still being held in Gaza. Estimates of the number of people demonstrating ran as high as 300,000 to 500,000.

Bar-David said he would respect the court ruling, which found that a strike on political grounds is illegal, but stressed that “the solidarity strike was an important move and I stand behind it.” “Hundreds of thousands of citizens voted with their feet”, he said of the mass demonstrations that cut across political lines. “We proved that with regard to the fate of the hostages there is no right or left, only life or death.”

The wave of popular anger had become impossible to contain after the Israeli Defense Forces announced on Aug. 31 that they had recovered the bodies of six hostages in a tunnel in Rafah, murdered, they said, by Hamas. But even before then, demonstrations had rocked the country for two days, following the Aug. 29 meeting of the security cabinet. There, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s demand for a ceasefire deal was voted down, 8 to 1, in favor of Netanyahu’s insistence that the military occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border must be prioritized over saving the lives of the hostages. Gallant argued that the diplomatic arrangement he proposed would also calm hostilities with Hezbollah and might possibly mitigate Iran’s response to the Israeli killing of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran.

It should be pointed out that those protesting, in many cases, are not opposed in principle to the “total annihilation of Hamas”, which the Netanyahu government has proclaimed as its goal, but demand some kind of compromise to allow the hostages to first be freed.

To put the real motives of the Israeli extremists around Netanyahu in perspective, consider the testimony given Aug. 29 to an unofficial inquiry commission by opposition leader Yair Lapid, who said the Israeli security services had fully informed Benjamin Netanyahu well before Oct. 7, 2023, that Hamas was planning a major attack in Israel. The head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, had confirmed that the government had been informed. Yet, it was not stopped…

Meanwhile, the dying in Gaza and the repression in the West Bank go on, amid a deafening silence in European capitals, not to speak of Washington.