Israel: Student Strike Ended

The National Union of Israeli Students has officially called off the student strike, with their executive board voting 62% in favor of the compromise offered by the Israeli Prime Minister's office. It took some time to actually vote, as no matter where the board tried to meet, they met throngs of rank-and-file students who urged them to vote to continue the strike. Arutz Sheva reports on the details of the compromise:

Tuition fees will be frozen for one year and the findings of the Shochat Committee will not be presented to the government for approval until first being discussed with representatives of the student union. In addition, the government will return billions of shekels to higher education institutions over a four-year period in what is tantamount to restoration of budget cuts over the past several years. [Full article here]

While the students didn't get everything they wanted, they did get a lot of it. Restored funding, a tuition freeze and a say in the Shochat recommendations. I think it's pretty clear that Israel's students would have gotten none of that had they simply played by the rules and "lobbied" the government. Direct action gets the goods, folks! The student union has shown the government and the world that it won't be pushed around. I for one will be drinking to the success of the Israeli students tonight.

However, questions remain, particularly in regards to how the decision to call off the strike was made. We know that plenty of students rallied to tell the executive committee to continue the strike, but what was the overall sentiment of the union's rank-and-file? I'd also like to know the process of getting chosen to serve on that committee. Finding that out is rather tough when one doesn't know Hebrew...

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a few more details about what transpired. It's subscription-only, so I've reposted the article below.

Israeli Students End Strike as Government Compromises on Financial Issues
by Matthew Kalman
The Chronicle of Higher Education

Israel's 250,000 college students will resume classes on Thursday after a strike of more than five weeks that brought the country's universities and colleges to a standstill. The students were protesting higher-education cuts and proposals to increase tuition fees.

The semester will be extended by two to four weeks, depending on the discipline, to allow students to catch up on lost class time.Student leaders approved a compromise deal late on Monday night, by a vote of 23 to 17, ending a long and acrimonious dispute that had spilled over into violence as student protesters scuffled with the police in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Under the deal, the government agreed to restore over four years some $300-million that had been cut from the higher-education budget, freeze student fees for one year, and consult with students before carrying out recommendations of a government-appointed panel known as the Shochat Committee, which is to due to report next month on reforming how higher education is financed.

Student leaders oppose plans by the Shochat Committee, so named for the former finance minister who leads it, to raise fees and introduce a system of student loans. A previous committee and the Knesset, Israeli's parliament, have both recommended reducing student fees.

The deal to end the strike was proposed by government representatives last Friday, and student leaders were considering it on Sunday, but they were prevented from approving it by protesters who disrupted their meetings and halted the vote.

The vote was eventually taken under tight security in a law college at Kiryat Ono, near Tel Aviv, as hundreds of students chanted in protest outside the building. Afterward, Itai Shonshein, chairman of the National Union of Israeli Students, left through a side exit, protected by security guards hired by the union.

"The struggle bore fruit," said Mr. Shonshein.

Moshe Kaveh, who is president of Bar-Ilan University and chairman of the Committee of University Presidents, welcomed the end of the strike. Mr. Kaveh had warned earlier that the students were in danger of losing the semester because they had not covered all the necessary material. He said faculty members would teach beyond the planned end of the semester, and universities would provide "maximum aid for students with minimum damage to academia."