Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the Finance Ministry, the Health Ministry and other government offices should be commended for hammering out a compromise. As Bennett noted on Monday, they did more in 36 hours than the previous chaotic Netanyahu non-governments did in 36 months. “Ladies and gentlemen, Israel has a budget... After three years of being frozen, Israel is returning to work,” Bennett said after the budget passed.
Bennett is right to emphasize the magnitude of getting back to business here. “After years of neglect, this morning we are bringing the most daring, most competitive budget; the most helpful to the weaker sectors and the most concerned about the future of our children for years,” he said on Sunday as the cabinet met to begin discussing the plan.
It is important to remember why this country was neglected and did not have a budget for three years. The reason is because Netanyahu hollowed out the institutions of this country to make everyone and everything depend on him. Important programs were allowed to go unfunded. Important updates for basic military equipment, like helicopters, were left to fester. More than a decade in power saw Israel wait until the last days of the Netanyahu era to seek to acquire refuelers and helicopters that we badly needed. Dozens of appointments at the Foreign Ministry were withheld, leaving Israel vulnerable abroad.
Why was this done? Because passing a budget would have prevented Netanyahu from being able to bring down the government and stop Benny Gantz from taking over the Prime Minister’s Office.
Now, out of power, it is extraordinary how all the chaos and crises that Israelis had to get used to for years are suddenly gone. We now have a government that actually has ministries, instead of one man controlling half a dozen portfolios.
Now it’s time to move forward with our budget to do the infrastructure enhancements we need. While Israel has been rapidly building new highways and slowly building some new light rail systems, there is a lot to do regarding investment in the health and education sectors. For instance, lack of a budget prevented some support for cyber and other initiatives in the schools to help Israel continue to have the cutting edge hi-tech that we have become used to.
The budget will go to the Knesset Finance Committee, where it will be prepared for the Knesset plenum; it must pass into law by November 4 in the plenum to prevent the government from falling. It will be the first state budget to pass since March 2018. Needed funding will go to the Health Ministry and Aliyah and Integration Ministry. Welfare services will get a major boost to the tune of NIS 1 billion. This is something the state should applaud.
Israel cannot be governed on a whim, some money here to this special interest and some money there to some sector to obtain a few votes. We have major challenges ahead and these challenges demand long-term planning. This includes the need to lower the costs of living, as well as planning for housing and acquiring technology like the new helicopters for the IDF. It also involves investment in our health sector, which is not just about confronting the pandemic.
One issue we faced during the crisis was concern regarding overcrowded hospitals, meaning Israel did not have any room to make mistakes during the COVID-19 crisis.
We need more room to maneuver in this respect; the state cannot allow itself to always be on the verge of a crisis. It is entirely predictable that the Western world will have rising inflation and other economic challenges in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. We need to protect ourselves – and the budget is one method for keeping the state stable.