At dawn on May 24, after a grueling sleepless night, the ruling coalition in Israel voted on a controversial annual budget that should allow it To over time. It is the first time Benyamin Netanyahu has been able to complete an execution since 2019. In doing so, the prime minister wants to put behind the four unstable years in which he remained in power without a majority – resulting in chaotic management of public finances – and spent a fifth in opposition. Not to mention the first four months of his return to business in December 2022 monopolized by his uncompleted judicial reform, which sparked the largest protest movement against him in Israel’s history.
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Mr Netanyahu has shown generosity to his religio-fundamentalist allies (32 seats out of 120 in the Knesset), three of whom have threatened to vote against his budget. The leader of the opposition, the centrist Yaïr Lapid, criticized “endless blackmail”. He denounces that the ministers of these political groups will be given almost 4 billion euros in discretionary funds destined for their communities within a year. They include representatives of the Religious Zionism party of Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who has promised to double the Jewish population of the West Bank settlements to one million souls (not counting settlements in East Jerusalem).
The main beneficiaries are the ultra-Orthodox, who, at the expense of the state, reinforce the dams that isolate their community from the modern world. Significant funds are allocated to their religious schools, their power base. The coalition refuses to ask in return for these schools to teach secular subjects (math or history) to which many ultra-Orthodox children have no access. Haredim (those who “fear God”) also receive higher allowances for adult seminary students, discouraging them from joining the labor market. Only every second Haredi man works. Others study for life.
Warning from 200 economists
These concessions anger secular and liberal Israel, which has been demonstrating against government policies since January, outraged by the unsustainable “autonomy” of the Haredim, who make up 13% of the population. They are growing faster than any other community and, together with their religious Zionist allies, could form the majority within fifty years. On May 19, TV presenter Galit Gutman caused a stir when she claimed that “the ultra-Orthodox are sucking our blood.” On May 21, two hundred economists warned the government that this increased aid to the Kharedim would cause “significant and long-term damage to Israel’s economy and its future as a prosperous country.”
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