BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers began a five- day national strike December 3 against Israeli government attacks on pensions and moves to sell off state-owned industries. By the time a settlement was reached between Tel Aviv and union officials, some 700,000 people were on strike, ranging from teachers to dock workers.

The work stoppage began after Israeli finance minister Yaakov Neeman stated that Tel Aviv would not honor labor agreements made with the former Labor government in the months prior to the 1996 elections. With pension plans and other entitlements thrown into question, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers joined a walkout called by Histadrut.

The Israeli labor court ordered strikers back to work, but they refused. The international airport, railroads, sea ports, government offices, banks, state-owned telephone and power companies, hospitals, and military industries were either shut or severely affected by the strike. Workers with and without pensions joined the strike actions. Neeman asserted that the affects of the strike - losses of $32 million a day -were "irreversible."

Unemployment in Israel hit a three-year high of 8.1 percent, or 179,000 people, in the third quarter of 1997. The reneging on pensions rights was part of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's $650 million austerity package, which also includes the selling off of up to 13 percent of state-owned industries.

The New York Times, Associated Press, and other big-business media focused their coverage on the disruption caused by the strike, with pictures and quotes from disgruntled passengers at the struck airport. The Jerusalem Post described Histadrut as a "hated" institution, and declared, "The public has little understanding and no patience for strikes."

Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein began preparing indictments against Histadrut officials and steep fines for strikers for disobeying the government order, but nothing ever came of it. Some workers blocked highway intersections in places around the country. On the morning of December 7 workers rallied in front of the National Labor Court building, chanting "Neeman go home!" after talks broke down the night before. Hours later, Amir Peretz, the social democratic chairman of Histadrut, reached a compromise with the National Labor Court and called strikers back to work. The exact terms of the agreement were not available.

Histadrut: an arm of the Zionist state
Unlike most trade unions, Histadrut, which is often described as a trade union federation, did not originate out of working-class struggle. Founded in December 1920, the organization was an economic anchor for Zionist settlers, providing jobs and services for occupational forces. It also assumed major responsibility for guarding the land-grabbing settler-state in formation against the "threat of Arab revolution."

Histadrut represents employers as well as workers. By the late 1960s Histadrut-owned companies employed 25 percent of Israeli toilers, and until recently, all health insurance. Two Histadrut companies - the American Israel Corp., responsible for directing U.S. capital investment in Israel; and Koor, a major construction and manufacturing company, are run by private owners. The umbrella organization runs all kinds of social welfare and charity operations under the banner Israel Histadrut Foundation, Inc. Histadrut is one of Israel's largest employers. Arabs were barred from participating in the unions until 1960, and to this day Palestinians from the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot join Histadrut.

In other developments, the unbroken fight by Lebanese people against the Israeli occupation of the southern portion of their country is heightening rifts within the Israeli ruling class. A total of 217 Israeli troops have died in combat with Lebanese guerrillas since 1985, according to Associated Press, including 39 this year. Another 73 soldiers died last February in a plane crash while en route to Lebanon.

Tel Aviv debates Lebanon withdrawal
In face of this death toll coupled with the failure to crush anti-Zionist rebels, Labor party leader Yossi Beilin, Gen. Amiram Levine, and others within the Israeli state have begun calling for a unilateral pullout. Chief of General Staff Lt.- Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak gave full support to Levine's withdrawal proposal, asserting that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu inhibits the army by not letting them go for an all out-attack on Lebanon.

About 10 Israelis rallied at the border November 26 calling for Tel Aviv to get out of Lebanon. The Israeli government's term "security zone" is losing its luster in Israel, and is more frequently described internationally as an occupational zone.

Associated Press reporter Nicholas Tatro, writing from an Israeli Army base in southern Lebanon November 26, noted "army jitters" there. Military officials abruptly ended an interview with Israeli soldiers, Tatro said, after reporters asked them about army morale.

In late November Maj. Gen. Moshe Ayalon, the Israeli army intelligence chief, complained that the debate over Lebanon was causing irreversible damage, showing the weakness and division of the regime that could encourage Arab resistance.

Meanwhile, in a move to try to hold together the fracturing Likud party and appease rightist forces, Netanyahu placed Ariel Sharon, currently the National Infrastructure Minister, on the committee of the projected redeployment of Israeli troops in the West Bank, which is supposed to be negotiated with the Palestinian Authority. Sharon immediately proposed creating two new "security zones" to protect Zionist settlements there.  
 
 
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