Newspaper estimates of the numbers taking part in recent demonstrations tell us something about the ranking of items on the agendas of various sectors.
What is impressive is not the precision of such numbers, but great differences in their magnitude.
On Thursday evening of last week, it was estimated that 30,000 Haredim massed outside the Jerusalem recruitment office, with some of them expressing the low level of violence likely to occur when riled by their rabbis. Several protesters and police were injured, 8 Haredim were taken into custody, but also as characteristic of such matters, they were soon released pending their appearance in court. Men speaking for the protesters on the next day's talk shows kept to the lines we have heard before. The Haredim will choose jail over forced enlistment in the IDF, and the country would suffer the wrath of the Haredim and the Lord, insofar as the study of Torah is the most effective means of defending Israel from its numerous enemies.
As Saturday evening approached, organizers of social protests sought to increase the numbers who would assemble in Tel Aviv and other cities beyond the 12,000 or so who participated the previous week. Aspirations were to reach toward the 200,000 who marched in the summer of 2011. Organizers emphasized the tax increases and service cuts likely to affect the middle class, profits made by "tycoons" controlling major companies, and the luxurious life style of the prime minister and his family.
The fizzle could be heard throughout the country when the numbers appeared on the Sunday morning news. "Several hundred" appeared at each major location, with "a few dozen" outside one of Prime Minister Netanyahu's homes.
Minister of Finance Yair Lapid has led the campaigns to increase taxes and cut government spending in order to deal with the sizable government deficit, and to "even the distribution of burdens" by forcing young Haredi men out of their academies and into the IDF or national service, and then into the workforce.
Lapid has positioned himself as preferring negotiations rather than relying on enforcement. He reached an agreement with the head of the Labor Federation that included significant modifications or postponements in the reforms to be imposed on enterprises associated with powerful labor unions. Lapid has encountered complexities in the laws touching on the education of the Haredim, which led him to back off from some provisions that had been included in earlier drafts of the government budget. There are conflicting reports about his negotiations with Ariyeh Deri, the head of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party SHAS. Deri claims to have achieved concessions that Lapid denies. According to Lapid, " "Deri announced that we met and closed on the deal and I am telling you that we never met and we never spoke. He is a liar, as has already been proven by three courts."
Lapid has committed himself to reforming Haredi education to include mandatory teaching in mathematics and English, and perhaps social science, but concedes that the changes cannot occur as rapidly as he preferred.
Affecting recent events are differences between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi ultra-Orthodox communities that have long been with us, although not well known by those who lump the ultra-Orthodox into one category, or even group them with the Orthodox. With all the reservations appropriate to stereotyped descriptions of diverse populations, those that distinguished Sephardi and Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox bear some resemblance to realities.
It is the Ashkenazim who are most adamant against the state breaking into their ghetto-like communities and dragging or enticing their young men into contact with secular Jews via the military or employment. In line with demands to maintain their separation and assertions of extreme piety, several Ashkenazi congregations have been explicit in setting themselves on a higher level than the Sephardim, claiming a greater adherence to religious law, and refusing to admit Sephardi applicants to their schools.
Involved in the Ashkenazi-Sephardi differences is the support given the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party by voters who are not ultra-Orthodox in their practices. Jews of North African and Asian backgrounds who are "traditional" support SHAS as an ethnic symbol, for its claims of fighting discrimination against the Sephardim by the Ashkenazim (secular as well as religious) and working to provide greater benefits to lower-income Israelis. In Israeli parlance, "traditional" Jews identify with religious practices, but are not assiduous in keeping the commandments. They may keep kosher at home, kiss the mezuzah on a door post, and occasionally wear a skullcap while not at prayer, but ride to a family barbecue or a football game on the Sabbath.
Yair Lapid's assertion that Ariyeh Deri was proven a liar refers to his conviction, upheld on appeal, and the 22 months he served in prison for accepting bribes as Minister of the Interior. It was consistent with the postures adopted by SHAS as the subject of discrimination that Deri claimed to have been railroaded by anti-Sephardi prosecutors and judges. The elder rabbi who created SHAS and still serves as its titular spiritual leader also claimed that Deri was subject to persecution, and reinstated Deri as party leader.
The Sephardi reputation for being more easy going, flexible, and tolerant of deviation than Ashkenazim may have something to do with a more casual approach toward secular and religious law that they brought with them to Israel from elsewhere in the Middle East. Ariyeh Deri is one of six SHAS Members of Knesset who have been charged and convicted for one or another variety of corruption. Optimists see the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox as less opposed than the Ashkenazim to including secular subjects in their schools, as well as military service and gainful employment, and more open to negotiation and compromise on those issues.
The numbers at recent demonstrations suggest that it will be easier to implement economic reforms than the extraction of the ultra-Orthodox, especially the Ashkenazim, from a lifetime of religious study.
Those who protested economic policies two years ago were disproportionately well educated and secular young adults. Recent polls indicate that they are disappointed at the change in tune heard from Yair Lapid as he has moved from aspiring politician to Minister of Finance. The modest numbers at this year's demonstrations suggest that many who demonstrated in the past have been persuaded by Lapid and others about the need to restrain expenditures and increase taxation.
The generally quiet marches by protesters of economic policies lacked the intensity shown most prominently by the Ashkenazi Haredim about an issue that they frame in religious terms. To their spokesmen, the efforts of Yair Lapid (who they label as an anti-Semite) to remove them from Torah study are comparable to the cruelest edicts imposed on the Jews by anti-Jewish rulers. They liken Lapid's aspirations to the decrees of Antiochus that forbid circumcision and required the sacrifice of swine on the Temple altar, which led to the rebellion of Judas Maccabeus and the holiday of Hanukah.
The economic reforms directed at the budget deficit is a matter of policy dispute, dealt with by discussion and compromise. Getting the Haredim into the IDF or social service, and reforming their education to train them for the workforce is a Kulturkampf , or clash of civilizations.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Remember the Cold War?
And the crises focused on Berlin and missiles in Cuba?
Could we be on the cusp of a comparable crisis focused on Syria?
Among the unanswered questions is the relative weight of Israel in the thinking and threatening being done by the US and Russia.
This, too, is not new. Israel figured in American and Russian thinking about the other great power in 1956 and 1973.
Both Israel and the US have urged Russia not to supply advanced weapons to Syria.
Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow, spent several hours speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which both said they agreed about the need for quiet in the Middle East. A day later the Russian Foreign Minister said that Russia was obligated under existing agreements to supply advanced weaponry to Syria.
One wouldn't expect either Czars or Commissars to be especially concerned about formal agreements. Putin is not a Czar or a Communist Commissar, but the Russian judicial system has yet to acquire a reputation for blind adherence to law. It appears that Russia is continuing with the arms supplies because it wants to.
Some of that threatens Israel, especially if it feels the need for another attack against munitions being supplied to Hezbollah.
Some of the Russian munitions threaten the US, should the US seek to intervene in Syria. US efforts to persuade Russia not to supply advanced weapons to Syria have been no more successful than Israeli efforts.
Assessments are that Russia is intent on protecting the Assad regime from outside intervention, and that weapons usable against aircraft and ships are meant to do just that.
It's one thing for Israel to attack Syria or Lebanon for the purpose of stopping the shipment of advanced munitions from Iran to Hezbollah, but another thing to attack a shipment of Russia munitions, especially while they are on a Russian ship, or off loaded and at the port. . An Israeli attack on a munitions depot somewhere else in Syria may not offend Russia.
Israel does not want to get on the bad side of Russia
Neither does the United States. Antagonism, verbal dueling in the United Nations, occasional low level nastiness, the arrest of one another's spies and backing different sides in a peripheral conflict is on one side of a behavioral frontier. Getting anywhere close to a head to head clash like those over Cuba or Berlin threatens much more.
So what does this mean for Syria?
Most likely a standoff, letting the Syrians continue to bleed one another with others supplying money and material to one side or the other, but without direct military intervention by a great power.
The rebels' ugliness is contributing to the great power standoff. Lots of governments have condemned Assad, but none have shown signs of positioning themselves on the side of cannibals. The Obama Administration has made clear its disinclination to get involved, and no European government is likely to move on its own. There is not the oil that attracted a European strike against Qaddafi, and the outcome of that adventure is not likely to induce anything like it in Syria.
And what does it mean for Israeli attacks against the transfer of munitions to Hezbollah? That depends on whatever the Israeli military has up its sleeves to be used against the Russian weaponry, or whatever risks of losses or a wider conflict Israeli leaders are willing to accept.
Calculations about Iran's nuclear program are somewhere in the mix of considerations. There, too, are Russian as well as Chinese reservations against anything Israel or the United States might be inclined to do.
Among the possibilities is that an Israeli attack someplace in Lebanon to deal with the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah would not unleash a Russian or Syria response.
But it might unleash a Hezbollah response, which in turn would produce an Israeli response, with who knows what coming next.
What is now more threatening is the most recent expressions of Russian support for its Middle Eastern allies, which at least raises the possibility of a much wider and catastrophic conflict growing out of anything the US or Israel might do.
Whoever said the Cold War pitting the US against the USSR ended in the 1980s was not thinking ahead to US vs Russia, with Israel in the foreground over Syria and Iran in 2013.
Nothing is certain in any of this.
Against all the dismal prospects, it is appropriate to remember some lessons from the Cold War that petered out in the 1990's. The Soviet Union and the US (or NATO or other Western alliances) did not come to direct blows against one another, and nuclear weapons remained in their bunkers. There were costly wars involving the great powers with adversaries armed and financed by the other great power. Korea and Vietnam were prominent in causing significant losses to the US and its allies, and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan was similar from its perspective.
Is Syria likely to be in the same league as Korea or Vietnam among US and its allies' experiences or Afghanistan in the Russian experience?
There are several reasons to be cautious about proclaiming anything dramatic.
Both Russia and the US, along with Israel, have learned how to say "No" to temptation, and seem inclined to avoid anything like their bad experiences. No longer in the air are the great ideological issues of "Communism" vs "Freedom." or "Free enterprise." Islamic radicalism is widely perceived as a threat, even among Muslims. Its appearance among the Syria rebels--although perhaps not yet dominant among them--may be enough to dampen any outsider's enthusiasm for defeating Assad and his regime.
Until recently, Israeli officials were assiduous in avoiding any preferences about the outcome of the Syrian civil war. Now there is a report about a "senior Israeli official" who has said that a continuation of the Assad regime would be preferable to the chaos likely if Islamic extremists come to power.
Even if a direct great power cataclysm appears unlikely, the competition associated with the Cold War is with us, more prominently now than during the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union when Russians were coping with a collapse of their regime and its economy. The world is too complex to speak about a balance of power. China is its own master. The European Union and its own more prominent members are not always singing in Washington's chorus. With nuclear weapons in the hands of problematic regimes in North Korea and Pakistan, as well as India and--it is said--Israel, and maybe before long Iran, there will be enough work for policymakers, commentators, and prognosticators to keep us all on our toes until the end of our capacity to ponder.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
The holiday of Shavuot provided a pleasant respite from the excessive excitement of this country.
Instead of the usual drone of disaster and dispute in the media, there were tasty festivities heavy on cheese filled caseroles topped off with cheese cake.
The relative quiet, for everything but my aging arteries, was only for a day. The media and generators of e-mail more than made up for it by the early morning of the day after.
OECD had produced a report on poverty among its member states that Israel media headlined as saying Israel was "the poorest of OECD countries."
Saner reports indicated that Israel scored last "among developed countries" on one measure of poverty, due to a high incidence of Haredim and Arabs not in the labor force. On the measure of income per capita, OECD members scoring poorer than Israel are Turkey, Slovenia, Portugal, Hungary, Greece, Poland, Mexico, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Spain.
The report that Israel was the poorest of OECD members echoed in the demands of politicians and activists that the Knesset make significant changes in the budget that was approved by the government. The Minister of Welfare agreed with some of these proposals, but also made a thinly veiled return to the issue of the Haredim. He said that the budget must assure that individuals who refuse to work would receive no government benefits.
Another headline was that Israeli authorities were seeking approval of four West Bank "outposts," i.e., new settlements. Among the details are an existing court order to demolish one of the outposts on account of its being built on private Palestinian land. However, government officials are now claiming that the settlers purchased the land from its owners. Somewhere in the muddle are likely to be assertions about false claims of original ownership and forged documents having to be sorted out by a court, and Palestinian sellers who disappeared overseas in order to avoid retaliation. Activists on both sides are weighing in with their own views of the details, as well as assertions as to who ought to be living on that piece of Promised Land or Palestine.
There is also a warning coming from a "senior Israeli official" directed at the Assad government, about its encouragement or participation in attacks against Israel. Should anything like that occur, Israel would take steps to destroy the Assad regime. The immediate background was a statement by a Syrian minister saying that--on account of an Israeli attack on Syria--Palestinians are now free to attack Israel via the Golan Heights.
On the eve of the holiday some mortar shells landed on the upper reaches of the Israeli portion of Mt Hermon. They did no damage, but caused the IDF to close the area to tourists. The day after the holiday, a group claiming Palestinian and Islamic connections, but hitherto not known to Israeli authorities, said it was responsible for the attack.
Also from Syria were pictures--blurred our of respect for Israeli sensitivities--showing a rebel soldier eating the heart and liver of a Syrian soldier he had killed.
An item from the other side of Israel reminds us about chronic Egyptian trouble with the Bedouin living in what one paper termed "the lawless Sinai." Several of the Bedouin kidnapped a number of Egyptian security personnel, seemingly for the purpose of freeing colleagues being held in an Egyptian prison.
Not yet the stuff of the prominent media, but coming to my mailbox from a religious friend, was a proposal to deal with assimilation among Diaspora Jews by giving them the right to vote in Israeli elections. Within an hour of receiving the first item was a skeptical response from a distinguished member of Israel's legal intelligentsia My own contribution raised issues of practicality, likely to spill over into well known disputes of high intensity. First of all, how would such a program deal with "Who is a Jew?" This will be problematic in Diaspora communities with high levels of intermarriage, and tenuous feelings of Jewish identity. Would such a proposal also require actions with respect to the Diasporas claiming lineage to the Arabs who once lived in this land? And how would the newly enrolled voters actually vote? Proponents ought to consider such practical stuff along with their concepts of "justice" and hopes of Jewish resurgence. Some of those proposing an outreach to Diaspora Jews might not welcome the enrollment of J-Street in the expanded electorate.
Before that squabble can be resolved is an ongoing campaign about who should be elected by the limited panel entitled to vote for one or another of the candidates politicking to be the Chief Ashkenazi and Chief Sephardi Rabbi. It seems exciting, but the code words used to advance or oppose one or another candidacy do not resonate clearly in my secular ears.
We are also reading about scandals affecting our patrons in Washington. Could there be implications of political turmoil coming out of the disaster in Bengazi, actions of the IRS against enemies of the White House, official meddling in the e-mails of journalists who were critical of the President, and a renewal of pro- and anti-abortion activism provoked by the trial of a physician on charges of murder?
All of the above reflect our return to normalcy, after programs featuring traditional music, commentary on the historic origins of Shavuot, and the variety of recipes used in Israel's ethnic communities.
Better than today's news would be the risks associated with another helping of cheese cake.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
The latest numbers about the two year old Syrian civil war are 80,000 deaths, one million refugees over the borders in Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon, and a total of four million displaced Syrians either over the borders or away from their homes in Syria.
As always, we must be suspicious about round numbers published by organizations with an interest in portraying the carnage. Nonetheless, by all the indications, the death, dislocation, and destruction have been great. Perhaps greater than Afghanistan, and more than in every other Muslim country since the onset of this century except for Iraq, where the round number estimates are exceeding one million deaths.
The Syrian story is entirely one of Muslims killing and dislocating Muslims, leaving aside the dozen or so who may have been killed by Israeli air strikes against the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah.
Not so long ago it was common to estimate the remaining life of the Assad regime in days or months, but now reports tell of its resurgence, aided by thousands of Hezbollah troops, and taking back areas that had been lost to rebels. There is no end in sight, with continued aid from Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran, and the Chinese and Russians blocking significant decisions by the UN Security Council. Assad's forces appear to be better organized than the numerous groups of rebels, some of whom have been fighting one another.
Who cares? is a significant question. The heads of other regimes are doing little more than lament the death and destruction. Barack Obama threatened retaliation if Assad employed chemical weapons, then mumbled his way out of any commitment. The head of the Turkish government spoke about a forceful response when he claimed that Syrians were responsible for explosions in refugee camps on Turkish soil, but a day later adopted the Obama posture of avoiding involvement.
Lots of worthies ought to care, if only on account of the destruction of people, resources, and the governmental institutions of Syria, as well as likely spillovers that threaten its neighbors. Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey are already feeling the impact of refugees. All of those countries have restive sectors, with renewed civil war in Lebanon always a tick away from now. Assad has threatened to unleash his Palestinian refugees to attack Israelis on the Golan Heights, and the IDF says it is prepared for whatever happens.
Even Thomas Friedman has been sobered by the evolution of Arab Spring that he once cheered as the onset of democracy. Most recently he comes close to admitting he was wrong. Or at least he now sees a difference between the shift from autocracy to democracy in Eastern Europe to the move from autocracy to bloody chaos driven by religious and tribal hatreds in Iraq, Syria, and perhaps elsewhere in the Middle East. Friedman writes back and forth on Iraq. It is the place he would like to forget but cannot. After a bad start, he credits the US for putting in place a government that was promising, but has not delivered. Almost always the optimist and American patriot, he is hopeful of the rise of an enlightened party in Syria that comes to power with outside help, yet he says that his own president is wise in staying out of the fray. More likely the fighting will continue with no winner until all sides are exhausted. What then? We'll have to wait for a Friedman prophecy yet to come.
Israelis dare not overlook the bloodshed and instability right over the border, with all sides agreed that Israel is the enemy. An IDF general warned that the Golan would no longer be a safe venue for tourists. Northern resorts have not shown signs of distress, but the military has upped its preparations in the area, including the movement of anti-missile batteries to protect Safed and Haifa. Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah speaks much of the time from his underground bunker, where he threatens Israel with more death and destruction than it has ever experienced.
All this is occurring along with budget discussions that have focused on Finance Ministry proposals of cuts in most domestic outlays, and a cut of about eight percent in the overall budget of the Defense Ministry. That produced a meeting between the Finance Minister, Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and the IDF commander that began in the afternoon and recessed after midnight without a decision. Presumably on the agenda was Syria, Iran, and the Sinai as a place for launching missiles uncontrolled by Egypt and unreachable by Israel unless it wants to violate its peace treaty with Egypt and threaten who knows what.
Saturday evening saw perhaps 12,000 polite middle class protesters marching against the prospects of budget cuts and tax increases that would impact them. That is another round number estimated by activists and media personalities inclined to hype the drama. It was a long way from the 200,000 said to demonstrate in two summers ago, but more are promised for next week.
The Defense portion of the budget is not only complex, but much of is secret and parts come to security services from governmental units outside the boundaries of the Defense Ministry. One commentator speculated in the midst of government discussions that there would be a reduction, perhaps not to the extent proposed by the Finance Minister, but it would not matter. Moneys cut could be replaced in mid-year without publicity in order to avoid challenging the Finance Minister's posture of being resolute. Any uptick in the threats from one or another hostile source would allow the IDF and other security services to go beyond their budgets, with the Finance Ministry having to redo its projections about deficits, debt, borrowing, and future outlays to cover the costs..
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Israel's current discussion is providing its lessons in the politics of economics and the economics of politics.
Political economy is the name of the game.
It is not really a discussion we are having. It's more like simultanteous complaints, expressed as close to the top of one's voice as appropriate to the short and pithy sentences designed for radio or television.
They come in response to proposed cuts in government spending, and increases in taxes, which themselves come from the need to present a budget to the government and then the Knesset, and several years' spending in excess that is said to require lesser outlays and more income.
What the noise reflects is the multiplicity of interests touched by government spending and taxation.
Their number is apparent in the physical size of budget documents, stretching for some distance along a shelf and weighing several kilos.
The details of the budget are great in number and complexity. Few can claim knowledge of it all, and how its various parts interact with one another.
No less complex is the nature of Israeli society.
Neither Israel's budget nor society are unique in these respects. Details of economics and politics vary from one place to another, but all modern states display many separate interests in their societies, to be served and taxed by numerous separate yet intertwined government decisions.
It has been popular to emphasize Israel's "middle class." Yair Lapid campaigned to win the support of the middle class, and now its self-assigned representatives are calling him a traitor for increasing their taxes and cutting their services.
Actually, there is no such thing as a "middle class." It's an artificial construct, meant to represent the broad center of society. The people claiming middle class affiliation differ greatly in their needs, desires, beliefs, education, family responsibilities, geographical location, occupation, status within their occupation, political affiliation or tendency, the intensity of their politics, and numerous other things that affect how much money they have in the bank, how much property they may own, their unpaid bills, ongoing income, how certain is their income to continue at present or other levels, and how all of these features affect what they think about the various elements in the budget proposal.
Alongside these variations from person to person within the "middle class" as well as in social strata below or above that artificial construct is the variety of details under the headings of government spending and taxation.
We are seeing a great festival of media personalities and political activists. It is easy to find yet another Israeli with a provocative story, due to an expected increase in a tax or a cut in a budget item that might affect family or business. The media is playing time and again the earlier promises of now Finance Minister Lapid to protect the interests of the middle class, against the claims of disappointment by individuals who voted for his political party.
"Might affect" family or business is important. Nothing is certain in the complexities where economics meets society. Many factors interact, and belie simplistic efforts to claim that element X will produce the suffering or enrichment of Y.
It is not only individuals who feel their economic condition is threatened by Lapid's budget who are expressing themselves. Professional economists and other commentators are claiming greater wisdom than the Finance Minister, and identifying one or other item in the government budget that could be maneuvered for different results than those which they see flowing from what Lapid is proposing.
Commentators agree that the social protests in the summer of 2011 mobilized a large number of young professionals who thought of themselves as middle class and had trouble obtaining all the housing, other goods, and services that they wanted. Those well educated but not entirely satisfied Israelis provided the bulwark of Lapid's supporters in the election that occurred in January of this year.
Some of those same activists who led the demonstrations of 2011, and tried without great success to repeat them in the summer of 2012, are unlimbering their efforts with an eye to this season. Their themes are the failure or duplicity of Yair Lapid, and the need to show in the streets who should be served by the government budget. The campaign is said to begin this weekend. A Thursday night vigil outside Lapid's home fizzled, with protesters counted in the tens rather than in the hundreds or thousands. There will be another test of activists' capacity Saturday evening.
Lapid's career in the media is serving him well. He admits that he had to make financial demands of his constituents, defends his overall actions as essential for the nation's economic well being, and explains how he is complying with his promises. He is making demands of the middle class, but he has detailed the demands he is making of other sectors as well. He has focused especially on the burdens his budget will mean for the Haredim and well-to-do Israelis, two sectors that have in the past been favored by governments at the expense of the middle class. Given the needs for economic reforms, Lapid is saying that he is actually improving the situation of the middle class by reducing the share of the overall burden it will have to bear.
Prominent in the politics of Lapid's budget are the organized groups on the inside and outside of his alliances. He has chosen to link himself with Naftali Bennet of Jewish Home, and Ofer Eini, head of the Labor Federation (Histadrut). Lapid's alliance with Bennet shows itself in avoiding settlements in the West Bank as targets for severe cuts, and his alliance with Eini appears in postponing reforms in several economic sectors whose workers have used their power within the Labor Federation to acquire abnormally good deals in terms of salaries and working conditions, as well as nepotism in their control of hiring new workers.
Prominent on the outside of Lapid's alliances are the ultra-Orthodox. His budget shows both how he is saving money at their expense, and using the leverage of the budget to prod ultra-Orthodox men out of a lifetime of learning and into the workforce.
For their part, some ultra-Orthodox leaders are responding in ways that suggest a recognition of their current political weakness, and the public's fatigue in supporting them. Heads of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party (SHAS) are claiming that their opposition to the budget is not a narrow concern to protect their religious constituency, but to defend of Israel's poor. They are sounding more socialistic than the Labor Party, and--in claiming the umbrella of Labor Party slogans for Haredim who do not work--providing good material for Israel's cynics.
Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox are more explicit in asserting that Lapid is anti-Semitic in attacking the population which they claim to be the heart of Judaism, guardians of the faith, more important in defending the country than the IDF via their capacity to assure the support of the Almighty, and the best representatives of what has been Judaism for 3,000 years.
They, too, provide good material for Jewish cynics. Much of their culture and practices are not ancient, but trace themselves to the Middle Ages. Some is new and increasingly assertive, as in their recently escalated insistence on the separation of women to the back of the bus, the other sidewalk, and not present at all in the case of some public activities.
The weight of the Haredim in the discussions toward the finalizing of this year's budget will depend not only in what they say, but how they manage to threaten the political future of the prime minister and other aspirants to influence. Their current weakness in not being in the coalition is apparent in Lapid's budget. However, they may be in the next coalition, or the one after that, and again be in a position to reward or punish their friends or opponents. Also on tap are the demonstrations they will mount in the coming days, and their capacity--against the capacity of the police to frustrate them--to tie up key intersections.
Lapid's rhetoric is impressive, as is the rhetoric of some critics. However, it is necessary to take it all with that overused grain of salt. There are so many features of the economy and government, as well as no shortage of outside elements capable of affecting them, which beg any degree of certainty as to what will happen as a result of any particular change in spending or taxation. Experts quarrel about the certainty of X change producing Y results for one or another economic or social sector. However, the honest among them admit that each relationship between X and Y depends in large or small measure on a host of other elements likely to influence economic indicators and individual behavior. Moreover, events in Europe, America, China or the restive countries of Iran, North Korea, Syria or Egypt may impact on Israel's exports or outlays for security in magnitudes to make all the current budget rhetoric suitable for nothing more than media archives.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
On Sunday the vast bulk of Israel's media was about Syria.
By Tuesday, it had shifted to the budget that Finance Minister Yair Lapid would present to the government.
The background was a sizable deficit in the budgets of recent years, and a greater deficit projected for the present year if there would be no cuts in spending and/or increases in income. One of the international bond agencies reduced Israel's credit rating.
Explanations for the problem touched on the many elements in government activities, plus the national and international economic trends that affected Israel's obligations, employment, imports and exports. Prominent were increases in salaries during recent years, and a surge in defense spending prompted by the Iranian nuclear threat.
Yair Lapid brought his new political party (There is a Future) to power by promising to ease the burdens of Israel's working middle class. By that he meant Israelis who work, support themselves, and pay taxes, as opposed to the growing ultra-Orthodox population that lives off the economic activity of others.
The "middle class" is not something defined with precision. It amounts, more or less, to the population with monthly incomes (after taxes) in the range of ₪10,000 - ₪30,000, which translates to US $2,800 - $8,300. That population already paid income tax rates from 35 to 50 percent, with a value added tax of 17 percent on almost all purchases, special taxes on gasoline, automobiles, and other large items, as well as local property taxes, alcohol and cigarette taxes.
Lapid announced increases in taxes on income and value added taxes, the extension of the value added tax to hotel bills and other expenditures of tourists, higher taxes on alcohol, tobacco, the purchase of apartments, with yet higher taxes on high end cars and apartments, as well as a number of cuts in outlays. Monthly payments for children under the age of 18 would be reduced, and would be the same amount for each child. This would eliminate the progressively higher payments per child for large families, which added to the incomes of ultra-Orthodox.as well as Arab families. He would also cut sharply the payments to religious schools that did not teach a basic program of mathematics and language along with their religious studies. Other reductions would be made in outlays for just about every sector of the government budget. Lapid would cut into the pension benefits of military personnel along with other parts of the defense budget, outlays in the field of transportation that would delay plans for new roads and rail lines, reduce subsidies for medicines, and payments for children's dental care. He would adjust schedules for subsidized mortgages in order to favor families that worked and had served in the military and reduce the advantages that had been enjoyed by families of yeshiva students, and reduce subsidies for child care that were put into effect in response to social protests during the summer of 2011..
It did not take long for opposition politicians to accuse Lapid of violating his pledges to help the middle class. Advocates for activities subject to more taxes and less outlays have lamented the damages to be caused. People associated with hotels have argued that imposing a value added tax on tourists' expenditures would cut into the flow of visitors, cause unemployment throughout their sector, as well as in all the activities supported by the purchases of individuals working in tourism.
The cartoon in Ha'artz shows a sweating Lapid at his computer, while his secretary announces a phone call from Ricky. Lapid had used the imagined family of Ricky Cohen from Hadera as archetypal Israelis with two working parents, two or three children, and barely hanging on to middle class status while paying high taxes that support other Israelis as well as all the other programs of an expensive state.
The Internet edition of Israel Hayom has a picture of a real family from Hadera, with the headline, "Lapid, you disappoint us." It tells of a working couple with three children and a monthly income of ₪ 20,000. The adults voted for Lapid and are frustrated by new burdens of several thousand shekels per year. "Truly we believed him when he made his promises. And now?"
Laid himself repeated the obvious--also heard from a number of economists--that it is the large middle class with most of the country's earners and consumers. They must be taxed more heavily and lose some of their services for the sake of economic stability.
Laid also emphasized that he is spreading the burdens more than in the past, both to the Haredim and to the wealthy.
Govmernment budgeting is never a step away from politics. Lapid's success in bringing his new party to be the second largest party in one election left him with the appetite for a major ministerial appointment. His background in the media but without a high school diploma raised questions about his qualifications. It was well known that the next budget would be draconian in its imposition of taxes and cuts in services. Prime Minister Netanyahu, with his own claims of being an expert in economics who had rationalized Israel's public sector in previous terms as Finance Minister and Prime Minister, seemed to maneuver the fresh but untrained politician into a position that would test his capacities and perhaps end his career.
So far Lapid has used the talents polished by years in the media to explain and justify his actions, whose details come from one of the ministries that attracts the brightest of Israel's university graduates.
Netanyahu has not finished with his politicking. He absented himself from the headlines of the budget announcement via a trip to China, and initially declined to comment on the spending cuts and tax increases when questioned by journalists accompanying him in Shanghai.
While on the way to Beijing, the Prime Minister gave a general endorsement to Lapid's budget, with some reservations about the cuts in spending for defense. Expectations are that he will decide on issues when he returns home, positioning himself as the wise elder who makes the adjustments that are appropriate.
Money, Syria, and Iran are not the only items in Israel's media. Current stories also deal with the latest revelations about the Mossad agent who committed suicide while awaiting trial for a serious breach of security, the almost immediate denials of the new details by a Mossad official, the latest maneuvers toward the election of Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, charges of sexual harassment against a prominent media personality, a charge of the same kind brought by a 21 year old congregant against a 75 year old rabbi who fled to Morocco, a country without a treaty of extradition with Israel, a dramatic day in court during the long running trial of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other worthies on charges of corruption, and prospects of another surge of locusts..
Dullsville it is not.
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Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
