Workers from a range of sectors in Israel yesterday launched a nationwide strike, threatening to paralyze the economy as they joined a surging protest movement against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the judiciary.
Departing flights from the nation’s main international airport were grounded, large malls and universities shut their doors, and Israel’s largest trade union called for its 800,000 members — in health, transit, banking and other fields — to stop work.
Diplomats walked off the job at foreign missions, local governments were expected to close the preschools they run and cut other services, and the main doctors’ union announced its members would also strike.
Photo: AFP
The growing resistance to Netanyahu’s plan came hours after tens of thousands of people burst onto the streets nationwide in a spontaneous show of anger at the prime minister’s decision to fire his defense minister after he called for a pause to the overhaul.
Chanting “the country is on fire,” they lit bonfires on Tel Aviv’s main highway, closing the thoroughfare and many others nationwide.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered yesterday outside the Knesset, or parliament, to keep up the pressure.
“This is the last chance to stop this move into a dictatorship,” Matityahu Sperber, 68, said. “I’m here for the fight to the end.”
The overhaul — driven by Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, and his allies in Israel’s most right-wing government ever — has plunged Israel into one of its worst domestic crises. It has sparked sustained protests that have galvanized nearly all sectors of society, including its military, where reservists have increasingly come out publicly to say they would not serve a nation veering toward autocracy.
However, Israel’s Palestinian citizens have largely sat out the protests. Many say Israel’s democracy is tarnished by its military rule over their brethren in the West Bank and the discrimination they themselves face.
As the embers of the highway bonfires were cleared yesterday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog again called for an immediate halt to the overhaul.
“The entire nation is rapt with deep worry. Our security, economy, society — all are under threat,” he said. “Wake up now.”
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