From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 1, 2024
Finance minister accuses labor union chief of ‘representing the interests of Hamas’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slams Histadrut Labor Federation chief Arnon Bar-David’s call for a national strike on Monday, telling reporters during a press conference outside the High Court of Justice that rather than lending a hand to the Israeli economy during wartime, the union chief “is actually fulfilling [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar’s dream, and instead of representing the Israeli workers, he chooses to represent the interests of Hamas.”
Smotrich says he instructed Finance Ministry officials “that anyone who strikes tomorrow will not be paid and I am happy to see that there are local authorities who do not align themselves with the decision of the chairman of the Histadrut.
“I call on the workers to come to work tomorrow and not lend a hand to a shutdown that harms the State of Israel during wartime,” Smotrich says, stating that “there there are those for whom the pain, the difficulty, and the heavy prices cause them to demand that we stop.”
Such people want to see Israel “surrender… [and] immerse yourself in illusions about arrangements that are not worth the paper they are written on” and “meaningless international security guarantees,” he states, arguing that “if, God forbid, we listen to these voices and stop in the middle it will be a disaster.”
For 30 years, since the Oslo Accords, “we surrendered and fled, gathered behind walls and fences. We asked for artificial peace and tranquility in the present and mortgaged the future for it,” he continues.
“We brought terrorists here and armed them, we released terrorists and gave them a second chance to attack us. We destroyed settlements, surrendered territories, castrated the army and allowed terrorist monsters to develop under our noses and next to our fences and settlements. Now is the time for correction,” he states — adding that “this time we can and must eliminate terrorism, to prove to ourselves and the world that there is a military solution to terrorism, that it can be destroyed with determination and persistence.”
