'The head of the labour union says he believes the country is going down a path of political ruin'

  • 2 weeks ago

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Transcript
00:00It's going to affect one million, almost one million workers across Israel, which is significant.
00:07The buses, for example, aren't working, the trains.
00:11Many people in the high-tech sector, even though they're private, are going to also
00:16strike in solidarity with this call by the head of the National Labor Union.
00:24It's coming under some criticism.
00:27Some people are saying, you know, this is a political call, it has nothing to do really
00:31with workers' rights.
00:33But the head of the labor union simply says that he believes the country is going down
00:42a path of political ruin and civil strife.
00:47And there was something about finding these six hostages, the Israeli army, finding them
00:54in a tunnel, and that they had just been killed, now we understand about two days before the
01:01Israeli army got to them, and executed in such a ghastly manner, right, that it really
01:10sent the country in some sense over the edge, really highlighting the fact that some people,
01:17some of the hostages have miraculously survived very abusive conditions for nearly a year.
01:26And the government has been, or many people believe the prime minister, Israeli prime
01:32minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been dragging his feet on getting a deal done for what they
01:38consider just purely political reasons, right?
01:43Netanyahu, we have to remember, if he signs a ceasefire deal, it is incredibly likely
01:51that his government will fall.
01:53And the people of Israel are now, I would say, not only angry, but irate that Netanyahu
01:58appears to be putting his own political survival ahead of the lives of these hostages.
02:05And finding six dead and executed, you know, just days before the Israeli army got to them,
02:11highlights the plight of the hostages and the danger that they face.
02:15By the way, the strike is an open-ended strike.
02:19This is day one, but it could go on for some time.
02:22And this may be the one pressure point that could get Netanyahu to change his position.
02:28He does, he is fearful of hundreds of thousands of Israelis on the street.
02:34And by the way, the estimate last night was not 100,000, it was about 250,000, which is
02:40what we saw during some of the strikes against, some of the protests against the judicial reform.

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