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.”
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
A registered sex offender from the US who went missing after entering Taiwan has been found and would be deported in light of the risk he poses to the public, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday. The agency launched a search for Levi Forrest Wallace, 43, after it was informed by the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) that he had entered Taiwan on Oct. 2 on a tourist visa. He was not on the US government’s wanted list. Wallace was sentenced to 90 days in jail with a two-year probation in 2001 after he was convicted of sexual delinquency of
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