The Histadrut was set up as a way to enforce Labor Party (then called MAPAI) hegemony over the Jews of Palestine. Histadrut membership cards were a sine qua non for getting a job in pre-1948 Israel and without membership workers were barred from many jobs through the 1970s. Histadrut funds were always used by the Labor Party to fund its election campaigns. Before statehood, funds donated by Jews around the world were funneled through the Histadrut into the MAPAI coffers. After 1948 it was Israeli taxpayer funds that were misappropriated for this purpose.

The Labor Party always saw to it that the Israeli taxpayer was coerced into financing the Histadrut's activities. The Histadrut has always been an extension of the Labor Party and a means for preserving its hegemony. Under Rabin, a new tax was implemented that coerces every Israeli worker into paying about 1% of his/her wages to the Histadrut commissars, regardless of whether or not they are members of the Histadrut. (Incredibly, the socialist wing of the Likud, including such deep minds as MK Speaker of the Knesset Dan Tichon and MK Meir Sheetrit supported the tax.)

Even among the thinking half of Israelis, many accept it as axiomatic that the Histadrut "protects workers from exploitation" whereas the truth is that the Histadrut is the main source of worker exploitation. The Histadrut systematically protects the grossly overpaid workers in governmental monopolies (especially the Electric Company.) Just this week, it was protecting and organizing sympathy strikes to support the pampered workers at Israel Petrochemicals, factory workers who make twice what a professor makes and 1/3 more than petrochemical factory workers in US industry.

The Histadrut deliberately ran up enormous deficits in its quasi-monopoly on pension funds, and the Rabin government decided to spend about the equivalent of 40% of the Israeli GDP (over 100 billion shekels) in bailing them out. The Histadrut-run General Sick Fund (the largest health provider) was also run with deliberate deficits to be bailed out by the taxpayer. In the 1950s Israelis languished in ma'abara tent camps because the Histadrut insisted in jacking up the unionized wages for construction workers, slowing the pace of construction.

The Histadrut has been characterized by such intense corruption that under the previous government almost all the Histadrut leaders were facing corruption indictments. During the years of Likud rule, the Likud continued to finance the Labor-Party-Reelection-Campaign activities of the Histadrut with taxpayer money. Lemming instincts for political suicide are not new in Israel.

All this as background to this week's strikes. The current Commissar of the Histadrut is Labor MK Amir Peretz, who took over when Labor MK Haim Ramon decided that being Histadrut Chief was beneath his ambitions. Labor Party Peretz decided that now would be a good time to destroy the Israeli economy if it would prove an embarrassment to the Likud. Using a few minuscule cuts in the proposed '97 state budget as an excuse (in contrast with my suggestion that a general strike is called for because the cuts are too small), Peretz called out the Red Army and started strikes designed to maximize the damage to the economy and country. In particular, he ordered his goons to strike and shut down Ben-Gurion Airport, stranding thousands of passengers and further hurting the already damaged tourist industry and greatly annoying enormous numbers of ordinarily-sympathetic tourists.

Netanyahu does not have the wherewithal to call in the army and run the airports and trains without the Histadrut cadres, as Reagan did when the US air traffic controllers walked out in strike. He did arrest the head of the trade union activities in the Histadrut, Shlomo Shani, for defying a Labor Court injunction not to order a strike in essential services, then quickly released him, giving Peretz an excuse to escalate the strikes. As a result, the Histadrut shut down large parts of the country.

As an example, the Histadrut's Electric Company union is shutting down by rotation electricity to various cities in Israel as part of the strike. Intentionally shutting down the electricity has caused deaths on more than one occasion in the past in Israel (dialysis machines going off, ambulances not dispatchable, and such.) Insult to injury is the fact that Electric Company workers in Israel do not pay for their consumption of electricity, no matter how much they consume (in energy-bereft Israel). Wasted electricity per worker is equal to approximately six times what the average family consumes, the total waste is enough to light up a medium size Israeli city. Additionally, Electric Company employees are paid, on the average, three times market-clearing wages. More Histadrut parvenus exploiting the working class.

To illustrate the extent of incitement generated by the Histadrut job action, striking chemical workers in Haifa booed and hissed Labor MK Yossi Beilin when he came to comfort them, because he is not far-left enough for the Histadrut coaches. But when Communist Party Member of the Knesset Tana Joczinski showed up for some shrieking, she was welcomed with cheers. The Labor Party's youth movement (Hanoar Haoved) joining in sympathy protests to support the striking Histadrut workers, waved large red flags, something one does not even see around the Kremlin these days. The Labor Party and its Histadrut offspring have never abandoned the red flag nor May Day "Worker" Celebrations. The Histadrut's real identity came shining through with its demonstration of loyalties.

It should be understood that the Histadrut is waging the opposition's assault on the government. It should also be understood that the General Strike shutting down Israel, launched by the Histadrut, might be the only General Strike in labor history in which the strikers did not have the slightest idea of what they are striking over. The fact is that the Labor Party is behaving like those sandbox brats who say that if they cannot own the toy they will bust it, and if they cannot be in power in Israel, they will maximize the damage to the country by Histadrut syndicalism and Bolshevism.
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