A month before the first anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza, the country’s largest labor federation — the Histadrut — declared a general strike. This almost unprecedented declaration was a response to growing pressure on the organization to support those protesting against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and demanding a cease-fire agreement that would bring home the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Three months later, the government’s intransigence in the face of continued and growing protest suggests that this opposition from the most powerful collective actor in Israeli society was insufficient: over one hundred hostages remain in Hamas’s hands, Israel has expanded its war to Lebanon, and Netanyahu remains firmly in power. There seems little hope that the Histadrut will make any further attempt to use its influence to shift the government’s position.