Angry protests erupted throughout Israel in reaction to the huge price rises and other harsh austerity measures decreed by the government in the early hours of Sunday, November 10. Among the measures were a 43 percent devaluation of the Israeli pound and big hikes in the prices of basic foods. The government also intends to impose a wage freeze for one year.
Sugar prices went up 300 percent overnight, while other essentials including bread, milk, and eggs nearly doubled in price. The November 12 weekly overseas edition of the Jerusalem Post reported that “many people went on an all-out shopping frenzy Sunday in a last-minute and mostly vain attempt to beat the price hikes.” Many shopkeepers, expecting to be mobbed, did not open for business Sunday morning. The shops that did open were besieged by shoppers grabbing anything they could off the shelves.
After the price rises were announced, demonstrations were held in the Hatikva area of Tel Aviv for three consecutive days. On November 10, demonstrators battled steel-helmeted police, smashed windows, looted shops, and damaged ten buses and an undetermined number of private vehicles, the New York Times reported November 11. Thirty-one persons were arrested, including Shalom Cohen, a former member of the Knesset and a leader of the Black Panthers, a group fighting discrimination against oriental Jews in Israel.
Demonstrations also occurred November 10 in Haifa, Ben Shemesh, and Ashdod.
The next day demonstrators again tried to break out of the Hatikva area to march on downtown Tel Aviv. Riot police with clubs and shields tried to cordon off the area, but some demonstrators broke through. They marched down Allenby Road, a main business thoroughfare, smashing store windows, attacking a bank, setting fires in a bazaar, and battling police. About sixty demonstrators were arrested.
Demonstrations continued November 12. In Ashdod, 5,000 persons took part in a protest march. In the Hatikva quarter, one policeman was injured and ninety persons were arrested.
Port workers at Haifa and Ashdod stopped work November 11, protesting the drastic cuts in their living standards. On November 13 a strike by engineers forced the state radio off the air for fifty-five minutes, and civil aviation workers suspended services to all except military aircraft for half an hour. Stop-work meetings to protest the price rises were also held in other industries.
The day the measures were announced – a Sunday and normally a workday in Israel – many people didn’t turn up for work. About 1,000 workers gathered outside the headquarters of the Histadrut – the Zionist-controlled corporation that doubles as both the country’s largest employer and substitute for a labor federation. They protested that the Histadrut hadn’t acted effectively to prevent the price rises.
One group forced its way into the building and compelled a Histadrut official to address the crowd. Apparently not satisfied with his reassurances that the Histadrut would do something about the situation, some workers followed him back into the building, where another clash occurred.
Although the government claimed that the measures would result in an overall price rise of 17%, even the Jerusalem Post estimated that 34% would be a more realistic figure. This is in addition to the 34% jump already registered in the cost of living this year.
Normally, a partial cost-of-living adjustment is made in Israeli wages every six months. As part of the austerity measures, however, the government ruled that there would be no adjustment at all for the latest increase.
Faced with such a broad attack on living standards and the massive reaction by Israeli workers, the Histadrut came out against the government. On November 11 the Histadrut executive bureau demanded that workers receive full compensation for the price hikes.
The next day both Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Finance Minister Yehoshua Rabinowitz appeared before the Histadrut executive committee to argue their case for workers forgoing any cost-of-living adjustment. They received a sharp rebuff. The committee voted 82 to 3 to endorse the decision demanding full cost-of-living adjustments.
“The atmosphere was somewhat hostile,” the November 13 New York Times reported, “with representatives of shop committees crowding the back of the room and heckling loudly.” Shop committee representatives also picketed the Histadrut headquarters.
In Haifa on November 13, a meeting of shop committee delegates representing 80,000 workers was addressed by Histadrut General Secretary Yeruham Meshel. At the end of the heated four-hour meeting, a resolution was passed supporting the Histadrut stand. Workers pushed one delegate off the dais when he spoke in opposition to antigovernment demonstrations.
The cause of the current economic crisis is Israel’s huge military spending, which consumes 45 percent of its gross national product. The October 1973 war, which cost an estimated $6 billion, is still not paid for, and the regime is trying to make the workers bear the cost. The Christian Science Monitor reported November 11 that Israel is thought to have “the highest per capita outlay for defense in any country of the world.” Through the austerity measures, the regime hopes to reduce the population’s purchasing power by more than $1 billion and lessen the drain on Israel’s foreign reserves.
Apart from devaluation, price rises, and higher indirect taxes, the government also announced a host of other measures. Among them were increased import restrictions; credit restrictions; big hikes in the cost of such services as telephones, the postal system, water, electricity, and public transport; restrictions on the construction of housing and public projects; and budget cutbacks.
The austerity measures were described by a treasury official as “the most severe economic program in the history of the state.” An opposition member of the Knesset denounced it as “not a tightening of the belt, but a blow to the belt.” He added, “It will not merely lower the standard of living of middle- and lower-income families, but the actual standard of health.” Yet Premier Rabin announced in a television speech that the measures were only the first step. More severe measures could come soon, he said.
What he did not admit, and what the Israeli masses have yet to grasp, is that there will be no end to the cycle of wars and economic hardship as long as the Zionist colonial system endures.
Israeli workers have, however, served notice on the Rabin government that they are increasingly unwilling to pay the social costs of permanent war. This has been shown by the angry demonstrations at Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Ashdod.
Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1974/IP1242.pdf#page=13&view=FitV,35