True-----we should blame Bibi.

PLEASE! !! give me a break !!! baiga shochat gets more than NIS 60,000 a month in PENSIONS !!! (from time in knesset, gov't, and arad). if you REALLY care about poor people, give tax money to poor people and NOT to parasite public sector beauracracy !!!!! and how much to bagatz judges get ??? Amir Peretz has strikes to get money for rich hevrat hashmal and bank workers !!!!

AB Yeshua once said that it would be best if in 50 or 100 years time, all Israelis will convert to either Islam or Christianity. He said, it would make life alot simpler for us. Yes, he did actually say that.

How about you thank him from saving the country from bankrupt, for reducing the unemployment by 3% and for bringing us the highest growth rate in the west? Thanks to Bibi the Haredim started working and the giant monopols no longer owned half the state, but life is tough, sometimes you have to cut the arm in order for the patient to live, I agree that now that we're out of the crisis we should take care of poverty, but blaming it on Bibi as if some day out of nowhere Bibi made half the country poor, is a pathetic attempt at demagogy.

it's important to remember that the biggest factor affecting the israeli economy isnt domestic policy (although much still needs to be done to cut down bureaucracy and corruption). Israel's economy is fundamentally constrained by the Israeli-Palestinian situation. The tourists that started coming back did so because there were far fewer terrorist attacks. As long as every Sbaro and coffee house has to maintain security guards, the economy will continue to be strained. Yet another reason why we have to get out of the West Bank and put a wall between the Palestinians and us. Also, the truly menial jobs used to be done by the Palestinians. Since the intifada there's been a massive influx of workers from the Philipines to replace them. These jobs need to be done by someone - if we pay more for them then Jews will be able to do them and maintain an acceptable standard of living. By accepting the need for foreign cheap labour we seem to be giving up on some of the Zionist ideals.

I visited Dead Sea resort last summer and the brand new hotel was empty -- completely empty. I also visited Acco and Beit Shean excavations and there also threre were no tourists -- completely empty, empty streets, empty restaurants. In every place we went my husband and I had the whole place to ourselves. Let see, world economic slowdown, the tourist industry dead in the water in a tiny country and he wonders why poverty?

To Emporer Nero Olmert no less. Well considering how corrupt Kadima is it was only a matter of time before Yitzcak Herzog joined up with them.