Historic strike: Israeli tech sector joins general strike as judicial reform plan sparks government chaos
Historic strike: Israeli tech sector joins general strike as judicial reform plan sparks government chaos
The striking companies include publicly-traded firms like Wix, Lemonade, monday.com and Fiverr, as well as the likes of Dazz, Natural Intelligence, Skai, and VC firms such as Pitango and Team8
Numerous Israeli high-tech companies announced on Monday that they are going on strike, joining for the first time a general strike announced by the Workers' Union on Monday morning in protest of the judicial reform.
The striking companies include publicly-traded firms like Wix, Lemonade, monday.com and Fiverr, as well as the likes of Dazz, Natural Intelligence, and Skai. VC firms like Pitango and Team8, and organizations such as Start-Up Nation Central, have also announced that they are striking and called on the rest of the tech community to join them.
As part of the general strike, there will be no flights leaving Ben-Gurion Airport until further notice. The strikes are also being held in universities, hospitals, and other sectors.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition plunged into chaos on Monday, after mass overnight protests over the sacking of his defense chief piled pressure on the government to halt its bitterly contested plans to overhaul the judiciary.
Netanyahu had been expected to make a televised statement on Monday morning announcing the plans had been suspended. But, amid reports that his nationalist-religious coalition risked breaking apart, Israeli TV stations said the statement was postponed.
Earlier, a source in his Likud party and another source closely involved in the legislation said Netanyahu would suspend the overhaul, which has ignited some of Israel's biggest-ever demonstrations and drew an intervention by the head of state.
"For the sake of the unity of the people of Israel, for the sake of responsibility, I call on you to stop the legislative process immediately," President Isaac Herzog said on Twitter.
The warning by Herzog, who is supposed to stand above politics and whose function is largely ceremonial, underlined the alarm that the divisions triggered by the proposals have caused.
It followed a dramatic night of protests in cities across Israel, with tens of thousands flooding the streets following Netanyahu's announcement that he had dismissed Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
A day earlier, Gallant had made a televised appeal for the government to halt its flagship overhaul of the judicial system, warning that the deep split it had opened up in Israeli society was affecting the military and threatening national security.
As opposition spread, the head of the Histadrut labour union, Arnon Bar-David, called for a general strike if the proposals were not halted.
"Bring back the country's sanity. If you don't announce in a news conference today that you changed your mind, we will go on strike."
The judicial overhaul, which would give the executive more control over appointing judges to the Supreme Court and allow the government to override court rulings on the basis of a simple parliamentary majority, has drawn mass protests for weeks.
While the government says the overhaul is needed to rein in activist judges and set a proper balance between the elected government and the judiciary, opponents see it as an undermining of legal checks and balances and a threat to Israel's democracy.
Reuters contributed to this report
