Jerusalem strike ends after Netanyahu intervenes

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat agreed to end a strike in the capital Tuesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally asked him to do so. Netanyahu also invited the mayor to bring his grievances over the city’s finances to the next government cabinet meeting on Sunday.

The strike was called by the mayor, labor unions and municipal workers in a bid to pressure the Finance Ministry over a NIS 300 million (almost $80 million) funding gap in what Barkat sought from the national government for the city’s 2017 budget.

As the strike entered its third day, the municipality had warned it would be forced to lay off hundreds of workers if a solution to the standoff between the city and the Finance Ministry was not found.

Garbage collection, welfare and social services ground to a near halt in the city since Sunday, when the municipality announced the general strike over the Finance Ministry’s failure to transfer a one-off grant of NIS 800 million ($211 million) to supplement its normal annual budget.

On Monday, Jerusalem high schools and middle schools started at 10 a.m. and kindergarten afternoon programs were canceled altogether. And on Tuesday, municipal daycare centers were shuttered across Jerusalem, though programs for special needs children continued normally.

The crisis came to an end after Netanyahu telephoned Barkat with a request to bring the strike action to an end.

Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin thanked all those who helped in ending the standoff for their efforts.

“I thank the prime minister for his willingness to be involved in finding a solution to the crisis in Jerusalem, and congratulate Mayor Nir Barkat and director-general of the Finance Ministry Shai Babad on the decision to accept the outline plan that I proposed to end the strike,” Elkin said in a statement. “Now the residents of Jerusalem can go back to their normal lives and we can invest efforts in finding a solution to the budgetary shortfalls of the city.”

Barkat blamed the strike on the Finance Ministry, writing in a statement on the municipal Facebook account that any resulting layoffs or cuts in services would be the fault of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.

“The refusal of the Finance Ministry to transfer the funds that were promised to Jerusalem will lead to fatal damage to Israel’s capital,” Barkat said, adding that “this would be the direct responsibility of the finance minister.”

But the Finance Ministry maintains that the city’s lack of funds is a result of mismanagement, and asked Interior Minister Aryeh Deri to appoint a city accountant to stop the municipality from holding Jerusalem residents “hostage to foreign interests.”

In response, the municipality bitterly denied the accusations of mismanagement under Barkat and accused the treasury of waging a dishonest media campaign.

“We are sorry that the Finance Ministry uses lying media spin instead of strengthening the city. The challenges of the capital are the challenges of the country,” the municipality statement said.

While the strike affected the public in a myriad of ways, it will be most remembered for the large heaps of trash that piled up across the city streets.

On Tuesday, Channel 10 published footage on its Twitter feed of municipal workers scattering trash across the light rail tracks next to the bustling Mahane Yehuda market, in a deliberate attempt to disrupt the light rail’s operations in downtown Jerusalem.

In addition to letting trash go uncollected, sanitation workers placed garbage trucks around government offices in the city to disrupt traffic.

On Monday, dozens of garbage trucks were parked outside of the Knesset with signs reading “If I forget Jerusalem” hung on them, in reference to the famous psalm “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.”