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Who will cry 'I don’t have any'?
The time has come for someone to assume economic leadership, show responsibility for the fate of the Israeli economy
Huge and clearly unreasonable budgetary demands have been piling up on the finance minister's desk. The "civil" ministries are asking for additional NIS 25 billion, while the Defense Ministry is requesting at least a similar sum.
What initially seemed to be a reasonable move of a controlled supplement to the state budget, designed to pay for the Lebanon war and its damages, is very quickly turning into a horror scenario that might totally destabilize and erode the achievement of the Israeli economy.
Ministries, bodies, organizations, and businesses have been seizing the prevailing atmosphere as an opportunity to present the Treasury with fat and lengthy bills that they had never dreamt of before. This is national irresponsibility and the prime minister and finance minister should curb it.
Yet, facing the rising tide of budgetary demands is a weak, embarrassed, and spineless government that lost the public's trust. To appease the public, which has been calling for its resignation, the government added promises of its own, spreading them left and right.
With his mouth's breath, the prime minister is giving away billions of shekels for new projects without publicly pronouncing the highly desirable phrase: "I don’t have any money."
And he does not have any. We do not. Israel's resources are limited and every shekel should be measured in terms of abilities and alternatives.
Let us first consider the Defense Ministry. In pure military terms, the war in Lebanon cost some USD 1.5 billion. Israel will be asking most of that sum from the United States in special aid.
Regardless of the hysterical wave that is sweeping Israel, the true results of the war (the elimination of Hizbullah's long-range missile launchers, killing one-third of the organization's warriors, its deportation from the heart of Beirut, the deployment of Lebanese and West European forces along the Israeli border, and an international embargo on weapon shipments), practically improved Israel's security.
The Iranian threat remains, but it does bear heavily on our economy and is neither new nor surprising.
The logistical problems that emerged in Lebanon did not follow from budgetary shortages, but were the result of local mismanagement and the typical Israeli disorder. At the same time, there is no room for demagoguery such as claims that billions could be saved by further slicing the benefits of career officers and NCO's.
Presently, the largest saving that could be made, lowering the cost of professional manpower in the IDF, is minute and marginal, as even the Finance Ministry would admit.
The fact that the reserves were not fully prepared for war is the result of a political concept, according to which the main IDF missions in the coming years will be evacuating Jews from settlements and policing the Palestinians in the territories - not going to war.
Amir Peretz, who was tempted to assume the defense portfolio even though he did not have the skills, must presently curb and filter the financial demand of the military system and not automatically support its every demand.
A similarly serious responsibility is assigned to the "civil" ministers, who must tighten, not loosen their belts, as must do spokespersons and representatives of every economic sector.
It is inconceivable that a business corporation whose profits reach hundreds of millions of shekels should file for "indirect compensation" and ask the government - namely, the Israeli citizens - to pay for a partial and temporary loss of current income due to a six-week war in the north, in the summer. Such compensation was never paid, not by any government after no war.
The total sum earmarked for business compensation should be limited to NIS 2-3 billion of the state budget, and the money should be given only to those who truly cannot endure the damages they sustained on their own. To this end, the government should urgently prepare a "special war budget" and let the public be the judge and decide on its desired order of priorities.
The time has come for someone to assume economic leadership, show responsibility for the fate of the Israeli economy, and repeat the unforgettable age-old cry by Yigal Horowitz: "Madmen, get off the roof!" (It sounds better in Yiddish.)
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