Squeezing Israel's human capital during a difficult time - opinion

The Finance Ministry is preparing to approve the state budget, which is no less than a slap in the face of millions of Israelis. It’s a state budget that is anti-social in every sense of the word, especially when it comes during a war that has engulfed the home front for four months. It’s abuse for its own sake and for the weakest in Israeli society.

Details of the intended budget are not provided to the public, or even to all Knesset members, until the last minute, when they are no longer be able to do anything to prevent the catastrophe. This time, this well-known practice by the Finance Ministry will cost hundreds of thousands of Israeli families’ compound interest, especially for the weakest strata.

Despite the deliberate concealment of the budget items, certain hard-to-digest items have already been “leaked” and cannot be called anything except a deliberate attack on all those whose voices are not heard. For example, the increase in taxation on VAT and the health tax are both cowardly tax solutions that will not make any difference to the powerful strata of the population.

Those who will feel it are those who are not in that strata. They will look for help and assistance from Israeli non-profit and humanitarian organizations. The Finance Ministry made sure, within the framework of this quietly and slowly creeping budget, to suffocate them from all directions.

Fewer benefits for Israel's citizens

Along with the apparent dramatic cut of 50% in food stamps, from NIS 600 million to NIS 300 million, the Finance Ministry has also decided to raise the employee tax imposed only on nonprofit organizations in Israel. Yes, this is correct. All nonprofit organizations, and only nonprofit organizations, are obliged to pay 8% for each employee on their payroll, and now it will be raised to 9%. 

This is the reality, while a similar tax does not exist in any other framework in the Israeli economy. It comes after almost four months in which the Israeli civil sector and non-profits were almost the only ones supporting and assisting Israeli citizens in need.

This is Israeli ungratefulness in all its glory. In practice, this extremely unjust decision brings Israeli non-profits to even greater challenges as they assist the tens of thousands of existing and new families in need.

Then there are the significant price increases in Israel. While Israeli citizens are fighting the war, both on the battlefront and the home front, since the beginning of the war there has been a price increase in basic food products by up to 40%. We demanded that price controls be implemented on basic food items, shouting this at every stage and in official letters that we sent to government ministers. Here, too, the families seeking aid are among the weakest in Israeli society, with their numbers increasing daily. They will find that aid organizations will be giving much less assistance and support.

THIS SITUATION can be ameliorated. While the Finance Ministry can continue to produce narratives of security and war costs, a strong and courageous ministry would not harass the weakest families in Israeli society. Instead, it would find solutions for taxing undeclared capital, inheritance taxes, or impose a tax on purchases of a third apartment, among many other socially-just examples. 

The government ministers, many of whom have done nothing for the battlefront or the home front in recent months, should have found alternative sources of funding. They should have voted against a budget that abuses the weak, some of whom were called only a few weeks ago to fight and win this together. But this is not in the world view of the Finance Ministry and some members of the government.

On February 20, we will mark the World Day of Social Justice, but in everything related to the State of Israel, social justice is not even a recommendation. A state that is not ashamed to squeeze its human capital with one hand during one of the most difficult times in its history – and with the other, impose taxes on the weakest strata – is one whose social justice has long been bankrupt. Welcome to the Israeli Anti-Social Justice Day 2024.

The writer is the CEO of Pitchon-Lev, an apolitical nonprofit established in 1998 as a national humanitarian organization focused on breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty in Israel.