A few minutes after the Israeli
parliament approved the budget for the next two years, a triumphant
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to announce: "It's a great
day for the people of Israel."
It is not. It might be a great day for Netanyahu himself; it's
certainly a very bad day for most Israelis. The money allocations -
484bn shekels ($130.4bn), in 2023, 514bn shekels in 2024) solidify an
ultra-nationalistic, orthodox Israel, forsaking even the appearance of
social justice. Unless, of course, you consider food stamps for members
of the ultra-orthodox Shas party social justice in 2023.
About 300 top economists, among them former senior Bank of Israel and
Treasury officials, warned in a letter that this kind of budget poses
an "existential threat to Israel's future".
As Arie Krampf, political economist at the Academic College of Tel
Aviv Yaffo, notes, the parties within Netanyahu's government gave
themselves more money for political pursuits "at the expense of the
weaker sections of Israeli society".
"Civil expenditure in Israel is lower compared to other OECD
[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries. The
new budget is a combination of neoliberalism and designated payments to
coalition parties, with no growth mechanisms, which is bad news for the
Israeli economy," he told Middle East Eye
A short illustration: money allocated to political parties for their
own projects reached 14bn shekels. In comparison, Israel's collapsing
public hospitals got just 12.4bn.
However, the budget is not only bad; it is also anti-democratic. Even
before the government has managed to achieve its goal of fundamentally
changing the Israeli political system through its controversial judicial reforms, the budget has already done it.
The new budget is today widely described as "looting the public
treasury". That is what headlines in Israel say, that is what all
opposition leaders call it. Avigdor Lieberman, head of the opposition
Yisrael Beiteinu party, defined it "a black stain in the history of
Israel".
This is only one way to look at it. In fact, the new budget is a more
sophisticated way to secure long-term, far-right nationalistic
education to future generations, maintaining conservative and reclusive
orthodox communities and creating future voters infused with a hardline
notion of the Jewish state.
That is the real meaning of the unprecedented billions allocated to
orthodox parties and even more so to the far-right parties Religious
Zionism and Jewish Power, as well as the ministries they control. The
immediate by-product is perpetuating the occupation, strengthening it
now and expanding it in the future.
Israeli settlers erect a structure for a new Jewish seminary
school, in the settler outpost of Homesh in the Israeli-occupied West
Bank 29 May (Reuters)
This aspect of the budget went almost unnoticed. All attention and
anger focused on the wild demands of the orthodox parties and the way
Netanyahu caved into their unprecedented demands. That's the very same
Netanyahu who in 2003, as the then finance minister, fiercely opposed
welfare benefits.
"He who cannot afford it shouldn't have 12-14 children," he then
said. "The policy of government benefits is what keeps people out of the
labour market and in a perpetual cycle of poverty."
Twenty years later, eager to preserve his coalition and stay in
office at all costs, he changed his mind. The billions transferred now
to child benefits and the ultra-orthodox educational system, which is
totally free from any state supervision and ideologically refuses to
teach core subjects such as mathematics or English, will foster
generations unfit to integrate into the labour market but certainly fit
to keep their benefactors in power.
Other segments of Israeli society have long been angry at the way the
ultra-Orthodox community relies on state handouts but pays barely any
tax and refuses to serve in the military. With a huge new payout, that
anger has turned into resentment and rage.
The Kohelet Forum vision
Yossi Dahan, head of the Human Rights Division at the College of Law
and Business, says that, in many respects, the budget is realizing the
vision of the Kohelet Forum, an ultra-conservative think tank primarily
funded by two American billionaires. Billionaires, one should add, who
are backing Israel's judicial reforms and are patrons of Finance
Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
"Democratic regimes based on social justice give priority to funding
of public education. In Israel, the government is to unconditionally
fully finance the ultra-orthodox schooling system, the system with a
long legacy of discrimination of against children of Sephardic origin,"
Dahan says.
"Private schools publicly funded will grow on the ruins of public
education. They will naturally prefer low-cost students from well-off
families with no costly special needs. That's the Kohelet vision."
The growing resentment of secular Israelis towards the ultra-Orthodox
diverted their attention from issues that are certainly no less
important.
If the Orthodox parties are taking Israel backwards socially and
educationally, the religious far right in the coalition is out to take
Israel forward their way.
They aren't waiting for the judicial reforms to implement the
profound change they want; the budget is a good enough tool to shift the
intricate balance in the definition of Israel as a "Jewish democratic
state".
Forget the democratic. Look at the money now allocated to make Israel
more "Jewish". Far-right Minister of National Missions and Settlements
Orit Strook, of the Religious Zionism party, was granted 280m shekels to
"strengthen Jewish Identity". That included 120m for Jewish culture,
and another 80m for Jewish identity.
Do not feel bad if you fail to understand; nobody does. That cash, by
the way, is on top of the almost 200m she already has to help families
of the religious right wing settle in mixed communities where Jews and
Palestinians live together.
It's more than likely these changes in mixed communities will make
life even less happy there, but it is a scheme that fits as part of the
Israeli government's "national mission" to Judaise as much of the
country as it can.
Restricting Palestinians is also an important part of this plan.
Strook's ministry has acquired an extra 40m shekels (double the former
budget) to buy special equipment like drones to monitor Palestinian
construction in Area C, the 60 percent of the occupied West Bank
completely controlled by Israel.
As if that wasn't enough, Avi Moaz, the racist and homophobic leader
of the Noam party, has resumed his role as a deputy minister in the
prime minister's office after walking out a few weeks ago. He's been
given a budget of 285m shekels to - you guessed it - safeguard Jewish
identity.
Prepare for a settler influx
While the budget negotiations were in full swing earlier this month,
Smotrich instructed authorities to develop infrastructure in preparation
for the arrival of 500,000 more Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
It is certainly no coincidence that this announcement arrived around
the time of budget negotiations. Those who ask where the money to
develop deprived and peripheral areas has disappeared to are missing the
point: illegal Jewish settlements are now the focus of the national
project.
This shift in focus hasn't happened overnight, but this budget is more settler-orientated than ever.
With the soaring cost of living in Israel now, West Bank settlements
and outposts that enjoy unparalleled support from government funds are
bound to attract more settlers to enjoy a higher standard of living.
'The new budget is a combination of neoliberalism and designated payments to coalition parties'
- Arie Krampf, political economist
Israeli neoliberalism and efforts to annex the West Bank have merged into one agenda.
Just recently, alongside the budget, the Israeli parliament discussed
a new bill named the "municipal tax fund". The concept behind it is
simple: the government takes some of the earnings of wealthier local
authorities from municipal taxes and redistributes them to weaker
municipalities.
Sounds almost like a Robin Hood tale. Only it is not. What it really
means is another transfer of power from local authorities to the
government, which can decide where that money ends up.
This scheme to give more power to the government at the expense of
democratic institutions is exactly what the judicial reforms are all
about. Seizing municipal funds is a tactic previously used by Hungary’s
Viktor Orban.
And who will be the main benefactor of this controversial move? The
settlements in the West Bank, of course. Due to their international
legal status - or, rather, illegal status - they cannot contribute to
the fund themselves, but they can get money from it. And they will, if
the bill passes.