After the District Labor Court ordered a halt to today's general strike, Eyal Waldman, one of the founders of the Business Forum and Emergency Forum for Redeeming the Hostages has no plans to halt his activism. "We will make decisions on a daily basis on how to proceed but we must reach a situation in which a hostage deal is closed," he says. "Today many people have gone out to demonstrate, and it was a successful day."
The court ruling on the strike was earlier than expected
""What's important is to save the hostages who were alive, and they were murdered between Thursday and Friday. These are people who were alive four days ago, people who survived in captivity for 11 months and then were murdered because there was no deal for the hostages."
But has your protest been effective?
"That we will judge by the results."
Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich claims you are building a Knesset list and plan entering politics
"From where does he get this information? He doesn't have a clue what he is talking about, and it's delusional, incorrect and not true. The main is not credible and is cut off from reality."
Was the strike, whether it ended at 14.30 or 18.00 an effective tool from your point of view? In the end it was marked out as a political demonstration.
"I don't know how the hostages can be turned into a political issue. The hostages need to be returned - period. We need to reach a deal with Hamas as quickly as possible to bring as many hostages home as we can. I lost my daughter, Danielle (at the Supernova music festival), and yesterday they buried Almog Serrousi who was the only one who got out of the car in which my daughter was sitting. He was the only survivor in the vehicle, was captured, and then returned home in a coffin.
Erez Shachar, founding and managing partner of the Qumra venture capital and one of the leaders of the High-Tech Emergency Forum, says that high-tech is mobilizing in an exceptional way to protest for a deal to return the hostages simply because it is representative of the population in Israel - with 11% of workers in the economy, and high-tech employees actually make up 20% of IDF reservists. Many tech offices were closed today and this was an important declarative step.
The strike was stopped amid claims that it was political. This is also what the government claims
"I have nothing to say about the court's ruling - those like us accept its every ruling as lovers of the rule of law. If the desire to return the hostages home and save lives is political, then everything is political. Bringing the hostages home must not become political and it is a shame that this was also made political. This was not a Kaplan protest event but for the families."
What is your next step and will the high-tech strike continue?
"Firstly, tonight we will go to demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Secondly, I don't know if we will see companies on strike - we joined the Histadrut strike as a sign of solidarity, I don't think it is effective that only the high-tech companies go on strike, because these companies are not relevant to the local market. However, we have plans to continue activity on the social and national side, towards supporting the families of the hostages and returning the hostages and to work for the closing of a deal which according to all indications is on the table and for political reasons has not been closed. We will continue to see protest actions not only in the coming days but in the coming weeks, until we see the hostages return."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 2, 2024.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.