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Israel's Age Of Austerity
By Joseph Algazy
Le Monde diplomatique
10-31-3

The Israeli government adopted an austerity budget in September, cutting social welfare to pay for defence and settlements. Israelis were already suffering from the worst recession since 1953. Now one family in five does not have enough to eat.
 
Since the beginning of the summer, ministers, civil servants, shoppers and passers-by on the avenue in front of the finance ministry in Jerusalem have had to file past a row of tents where men, women and children are living. These people - single mothers, the homeless and the unemployed - are the main victims of the current anti-social policies of Ariel Sharon's government.
 
Vicki Knafo, the woman who started the protest movement, is a 43-year-old divorcee raising her three children on 1,200 shekels ($270) a month that she earns as a part-time cook in a creche. Until July she received supplementary benefit of around 2,700 shekels ($605) to bring her income up to the official minimum. But after the government's recent austerity measures she gets 1,200 shekels less. Early in July she set out from her home in the Negev desert town of Mizpeh Ramon to walk the 200km to Jerusalem. It took her a week. Others have followed her, sometimes taking their children with them. Among them is Ben Abraham, aged 59, who has a dog but no home. His T-shirt bears the message: "My dog has a kennel - what do I have?"
 
The police intervene violently whenever these protesters attempt to speak to ministers.
 
A group of Negev Bedouins who have set up a tent nearby are protesting against the systematic destruction of their villages, which is intended to drive them from their ancestral lands into city slums that some people call "reservations".
 
There is another campsite of the unemployed and homeless in Tel Aviv. It was set up in August 2002 in one of the richest districts on Kikar Medina (State Square), which the protesters call Kikar HaLehem (Bread Square). Dozens live there, with their children, in old buses or tents. So far, all attempts by the local authority and property owners to have them removed have failed.
 
"The choice of place is no accident," says Israel Twito, 38, a divorcee who is bringing up three daughters alone. "The contrast between our miserable campsite and the neighbourhood's luxury shops and apartment blocks symbolises the ever-widening abyss between rich and poor."
 
These protesters are the tip of the iceberg, for Israel is in acute economic crisis. From 1992 to 1995 growth was above 7% a year, thanks to the Oslo Accords and the arrival of Jews who had emigrated from the former Soviet Union. It has fallen continuously ever since, and the second intifada has plunged the country into deep recession (1). In the first half of 2003 per capita GNP fell by 0.7%, after falling by 6.7% in the second half of 2001, 2.1 % in the first half of 2002, and 1.3% in the second half of 2002 (2).
 
The budget deficit for 2003 was nearly 6% of GNP, and industrial production fell by 1.1% in the first half of the year. Even the output of the hi-tech industries fell by 8% in May and June. Private per capita consumption fell by 2.1% over the same period: it had fallen by 2.1% in the first half, and 2.8% in the second half, of 2002.
 
During the preparatory debates on the 2004 budget at the end of August, Binyamin Netanyahu's finance ministry forecast a growth rate of 2.5%, a 2.9% drop in public consumption, a record rise of 11.2% in unemployment, a drop of 4% in public sector and 2.3% in private sector wages, and inflation of 1.1-1.2%.
 
Avraham Shochat, a Labour member of the Knesset and former finance minister, says talk of a turnaround in the economy is "nonsense". It "will be achieved only if there is a political turnaround in the Middle East. Without that, there will be no new investments by foreigners or Israelis." He believes the economy will not see growth of 2.5% in 2004 unless the level of friction with the Palestinians is lowered (3).
 
In July the number of registered unemployed went above 220,000, which is 14,000 more than in June. As a result, 34 towns (29 Arab and 5 Jewish) had a rate above the symbolic threshold of 10%. Things are unlikely to get better, since thousands of teachers have been sacked on the eve of the new school year, and thousands more government employees will lose their jobs or be forced into early retirement soon. The finance minister predicts Israel will have 300,000 registered unemployed next year. Thousands more will no longer bother to register, since the government has introduced measures to cut the numbers eligible for benefit. Under-25s will have to check in at the labour exchange every day, to force them to take the place of Israel's 250,000 immigrant workers, more than 50,000 of whom have been expelled by the police. These were ruthlessly exploited, often working up to 14 hours a day and seven days a week for a monthly wage of $500 to $600 - a form of modern slavery that Israelis are not willing to accept.
 
According to the government, the latest austerity plan is the only way to get the Israeli economy on a sound footing. It means swingeing cuts in social welfare budgets, nationally and locally. On top of previous anti-social legislation, these new attacks on the welfare state have hit the worst-off hardest. But the middle classes have not been spared either. The amount of unemployment benefit has been reduced, and stricter qualifying conditions imposed. The same applies to maternity and family allowances, and to supplementary benefit for war invalids and people earning less than the official minimum. A further reduction in family allowances has put another 11,000 families below the poverty line, bringing the total to 1.17 million - that is one Israeli in five.
 
Finance ministry spokesmen claim the cuts in family allowances will force the recipients to stop sponging off the state and get a job. They ignore the growing unemployment. As more and more factories close, the government is not only failing to create jobs - it is suppressing them. State retirement pensions have been frozen at January 2001 levels, and invalidity benefits frozen until 2006. Health and education budgets have been cut and charges to users increased. The state has also cut back on housing loans to force young couples, new olim (Jewish immigrants) and the homeless to seek mortgages from private banks.
 
The pension reform will mean an increase in employees' contributions and smaller retirement pensions from October. Starting in January 2004, the retirement age for men will be raised from 65 to 67, and for women from 60 to 67.
 
Dr Yitzhak Kadman, director of the National Council for the Child, compares the austerity plan with the 10 plagues inflicted on Egypt in the Old Testament: "This plan is afflicting children and families with children with at least 20 painful plagues" (4).
 
On 28 August the popular Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot ran the front-page headline "A million Israelis are hungry". Earlier this year researchers at the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Brookdale Institute, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, reported that 400,000 Israeli families - 22% of the total - were suffering from "nutritional insecurity", since they could not provide their children regularly with the food they need for proper growth.
 
Some ate smaller portions, others skipped meals. In the worst cases, they ate nothing all day. Meals were monotonous and poor in meat, dairy products, fruit and vegetables. Four out of five of these families said things have worsened in the past two years and their economic situation is more precarious: 5% admitted seeking food aid from soup kitchens or charities. According to another poll published by the humanitarian charity Latet (Giving), the number of Israelis applying for food aid jumped by 46% in a year. The main applicants are single-parent and large families.
 
Public opinion was shocked by the simultaneous announcement of the huge profits made by Israel's banks. The largest, Bank Hapoalim, announced net profits of 335m shekels ($75m) for the second quarter of 2003, an increase of 59%. Israel Discount Bank's profit rose to 116m shekels ($26m) for the same period, 36.5% more than in 2002. The combined profits of the five largest banks (Hapoalim, Leumi, Discount, Hamizrahi and BenLeumi) for the first half of 2003 are 1,400m shekels ($314m), 130% higher than the first half of 2002.
 
"The economic and social crisis is the outcome of two major factors," says former Communist Knesset member Tamar Gozanski. "One is the war, the occupation and the West Bank settlements; the other is the government's neo-liberal economic policy."
 
She describes the combination of these as catastrophic: "While military expenditure and the cost of the settlements are enormous and almost untouchable, social welfare budgets are being cut all the time. Meanwhile bank and stock-exchange profits continue to climb. This government is intensifying the policies of its predecessors; it does the same thing, only more so."
 
In particular, when it comes to social inequality. Barbara and Shlomo Swirsky, two sociologists who run Tel Aviv's Adva Centre, argue that "the blows dealt to the social welfare system on the pretext of budgetary rigour reflect a change in the scale of values. The affluent Israelis who people the corridors of power are influenced by Social Darwinism. According to that, the strong deserve help because they are strong; whoever falters, for whatever reason, is sure to fall by the wayside, and it is therefore pointless to invest in him. The weak are useless. That is why, during all these years of so-called state poverty, our governments have spent a great deal of money on exempting capitalists from taxes, on excessive military expenditure and settlements, and on huge salaries for top civil servants."
 
On a visit to Tel Aviv's HaCarmel market, Vicki Knafo said: "If there's money for the settlers in the occupied territories, then thereís no reason why there shouldn't be money for social welfare benefits."
 
It is a strong argument, but the single mothers, like the other protest groups, have failed to produce a mass movement.
 
Tamar Gozanski says: "Although Knafo's movement is authentic, it will not take off without the active support of the opposition parties, including the Labour party and Shas, and the Histadrut trade-union federation. It gets some support from women's solidarity and Jewish-Arab cooperation, but that is not enough."
 
Surely a large part of the population is opposed to the government's anti- social measures? "Yes, but the same people support the government because of the serious political situation."
 
Shlomo Wirsky agrees: "Tsahal's continuing war in the occupied territories and the Palestinian terrorist attacks are preventing the emergence of a large-scale social movement."
 
Avraham Schochat says much the same: "The people of Israel should know that a continuation of the conflict with the Palestinians will turn Israel into a poorer country that provides less services to its citizens. Anyone who thinks that the country can remain on a path of economic-social collapse, while embroiled in a security conflict, doesn't know what he's talking about" (5).
 
- Joseph Algazy is a journalist on the Tel Aviv daily Ha'aretz
 
(1) See Moti Bassok, "Shochat rejects treasuryís forecast of 2.5 % growth", Haíaretz, English internet edition, 28 August 2003.
 
(2) These figures, and the following, were published by Haíaretz, Yediot Aharonot or Maíariv in August 2003.
 
(3) Moti Bassok, ibid.
 
(4) Brochure published in Jerusalem, April 2003.
 
(5) Moti Bassok, ibid.
 
- Translated by Barry Smerin
 
All Rights Reserved © 1997-2003 Le Monde diplomatique
 
http://mondediplo.com/2003/10/12israel
 

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