Politicians created poverty
Israel needs creative thinking to return country to its proud egalitarian past
Once upon a time, Israel was a model egalitarian, poverty-free country. Back in the 1960s, when the "enlightened" Mapai Party governed the country.
Poverty started to grow in 1977, when the Likud came to power. Since then, the more Israel has abandoned its socialist past, the number of Israeli poor has risen. But it was only in the past few years that poverty jumped significantly and assumed such dimensions as to be a source of national shame.
Poverty by the numbers
"Israel today is at the top of the international poverty graph compared to other developed countries," say experts ahead of the 2006 Annual Economic Forum, set to open in Caesaria at the end of June.
Their study, which quotes earlier statistics from the National Insurance Institute and the Bank of Israel, says Israel comes in first or second with regard to numbers of poor elderly, poor children, poor workers and an overall effects of poverty on society.
How could it be?
How could our Israel have come to top all the Western poverty charts? According to Dr. Mumi Dahan and other university, Bank of Israel and National Insurance Institute experts, there are several answers.
The first is political-immediate: Direct budget cuts to social programs from 2002-2005 hit those parts of the population that live (barely) on the edge of poverty in a way that doesn't exist in other developed countries.
As Dr. Dahan puts it, "Over the past three years there has been a dramatic change in Israel's policy with regard to supporting weaker elements of society. Government stipends and aid have been slashed, insurance coverage for unemployment has been significantly reduced and worker retraining programs have been cut… The dramatic reduction in child benefits has sent Israel to the bottom of the list of developed countries with regard to state aid to families with children… senior citizens benefits in Israel, which provide basic incomes for the retired population, are the lowest in the Western world."
Without question, these criticisms are leveled directly at the past two finance ministers, Silvan Shalom and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Political poverty
According to researchers, the other reasons for Israel's terrible poverty marks reek of politics: Economic neglect and industrial and educational discrimination against the Arab minority, the massive influx of foreign workers (both legal and illegal), the high rate of unemployment, real salaries at the bottom of the income scale and the disintegration of Israel's government aid to the elderly.
Poverty in Israel is not, therefore, a divinely decreed plague. It is the fruit of pre-planned, well thought out government policy. And countries can change: The staff of the Israel Democracy Institute suggests fundamental policy changes to the fight against poverty.
The best of these was proposed by the National Insurance Institute. The plan is professional, focused, objective, unafraid to take the current opportunity to plan out all issues with regard to the state budget, and avoids hasty, bombastic tricks that have been tried only in a very few countries, with situations drastically different than Israel's (such as mandatory pensions, which have no effect on today's elderly poor, and negative income tax, which must be managed with child benefits.
Beating poverty
Adopting the National Insurance Institutes' recommendations will reduce poverty rates by five-to-six percent, and will knock Israel off the top of the poverty ladder, and mainly – will kick off a process of returning Israel to its proud history as a relatively egalitarian country.
For a small budgetary investment, less than 0.4 percent of local production, we can rescue hundreds of thousands of people from poverty, the same people thrust into poverty by the government.
So why wait for the politicians?
