Farewell, citizens

The elderly lady with the broken false teeth that cannot be replaced with the money she receives from the National Insurance Institute; the kid who lives in the Gaza region and will continue to go for anxiety treatments at a building that hasn't been reinforced against rocket. 

The Galilee farmer who thought the war was over and didn't realize government officials in charge of compensation are also an enemy; the child who immigrated to Israel a short while ago and discovered he won't get extra help in Hebrew from his country because it has no money for it.

The student, in the very same school, who discovered that this year too class time was cut back; the cancer patient who dragged his fatigued body to Jerusalem so that he can continue living even if he's not wealthy.

The 1st grade teacher who looks at her income statement with anxiety every month and the parents who look at what's going on at their children's school with anxiety – all of the above can record 2006 as the year nobody gave a damn about them.

And there's more. The elderly man who at the last moment was saved by several Knesset members who managed to annul the fine his government wanted to impose on him should he request, God forbid, nursing assistance from the National Insurance Institute six months after his first request was denied. 

There's the woman forced to sweep away leaves at an abandoned IDF base and told this way she'll be gaining work skills in the framework of a plan to fight unemployment. 

The disabled man who was unable to board Gaydamak's bus to the tent city and will remember the war as a battle against the stench of urine at the bomb shelter and the man who was promised that after the Gush Katif evacuation everything will be alright, and now has no job. 

There's also the young girl who joined the statistics of "detached youth" because she was unable to close the gap between new immigrants and veteran Israelis at school – after they didn't allow her to learn Hebrew properly – and now she's on her way to "youth at risk". 

The girl at the institute where she was beaten and abused, and all the other children who are still waiting for their turn to get out of their bad, dangerous homes – all of them can remember 2006 as the year they were betrayed. Maybe terminally.

Merely statistics

To this long and scary list we can add the families that discovered this year that even non-profit organizations that hand out food ran out of resources, as well as the groups that support elderly Holocaust survivors, as well as the ones that really want to do something for the sake of better education for children in outlaying areas, and also those that do their best to assist battered women.

Once upon a time, when we still had a government here, non-profit groups could do more. Both they and their clients were forgotten and abandoned at the side of the road en route to speedy economic growth.

They were comforted for a moment by a false verbal hug, left there all alone and barely picking themselves up for yet another struggle, another exhausting day, without hope.

Perhaps we should recall, at this time of year-end summaries, the transparent people, no matter where they're from: Those who were promised minimum wage that they can live on barely – but didn't receive it. Those who were told that their status as contract workers will improve – and nothing happened.

Those who are still waiting for their robbed salaries and rights as local authority employees – and will continue to wait. Those who ask themselves how it can be that such nice economic growth hasn't reached them at all and how come there are such huge reserves in the National Insurance Institute – yet not even one shekel for them. In 2006, if they still believed, they had all the reasons to stop believing.

We should also remember the citizens that became sitting ducks at a mad shooting range, and those who soon may again become sitting ducks – without even as much as one bomb shelter being built for them.

Let's not forget the 840,000 children who lived below the poverty line this year. If we connect all of them, we'll have a frighteningly long line of people who were completely abandoned by their government and authorities in a country defined as normal.