Galilee cities launch strike over expected cuts to tax benefits

Schools and local institutions in several towns in northern Israel launched an open-ended strike on Sunday over projected cuts to tax benefits for area residents.

Some 30,000 students stayed home on Sunday as schools in the Western Galilee cities of Nahariya, Acre, Ma’alot Tarshiha, and Kfar Havradim were shuttered in protest.

Special education schools remained open.

Residents threatened to take to the streets beginning Monday as the Knesset Finance Committee was slated to convene to decide which towns and regions in outlying areas will receive tax benefits.

The strike was preemptive, amid concerns that the Knesset committee would vote to reduce the current benefits.

Local authorities accused the government of discriminating against towns far from the economic center of the country and said the Knesset cuts would “set the periphery back” by decades.

“The government has initiated a policy of discrimination against the periphery, and treats us as if we are invisible,” leaders of the protest told Channel 2.

“The promises of social policies have turned into the implementation of discriminatory policies that will set the periphery back by decades. We remind the prime minister and finance minister that there is no state without a periphery.”