Last night, Saturday March 7, on the eve of today’s International Women’s Day, Hadash held a public event in south Tel Aviv “spearheaded by the brave women who were workers’ struggle leaders in the past year and dare to stand up to injustice and against discrimination and who demand respect, recognition and equality for women.”

Key participants and speakers at the event included Inbal Hermoni, chairwomen of the Social Workers Union; Maisam Jaljuli, the head of the Hadash fraction in Na’amat – the largest and leading women’s movement in Israel affiliated with the Histadrut (Federation of Labor); Malka Boutboul, union organizer of the janitors at Tel Aviv University, and Angel Haddad, a leading member of the Cellcom workers’ union.

Inbal Hermoni, Chairwomen of the Social Workers Union, is arrested by police during a workers’ demonstration in Central Tel Aviv, August 1, 2019. (Photo: Social Workers Union)

In a statement released towards today’s International Women’s Day, the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) emphasized that, “The quest for women’s equality is an essential element in the battle against all forms of discrimination, for the defense of democratic freedoms, against the demolition of homes and dispossession, against fascist tendencies and fundamentalist religious coercion. The interest of all women, Jewish and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian, is to end the policy of settlement expansion and of annexation and oppression by the Netanyahu government, which will only lead to more bloodshed and war. The CPI actively encourages the phenomenon of conscientious objectors to give impetus to the public campaign to end the occupation and reach a just and stable peace. At the core of this peace is an independent Palestinian state to be founded within the borders of June 4, 1967, with its capital in East Jerusalem, and living in peace alongside Israel.

“Towards International Women’s Day of 2020, the CPI expresses its great appreciation to all its women comrades, to all the women active in the Joint List parliamentary alliance, Hadash and Tandi (The Democratic Women’s Movement of Israel), to all peace-loving women, and to all women active in class-based, environmental, equality and social change movements.”