Israeli budget agreed after Netanyahu wins coalition support

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to pass a two-year state budget after overcoming a series of rifts within his coalition of far-right and religious parties.

Parliament voted through a 1tn-shekel spending package in the early hours of Wednesday after Netanyahu struck a deal with two factions that threatened to withdraw support for the budget unless their demands for more money were met Had happened.

The final package included billions of shekels for Israel’s fast-growing and militantly religious Haredi community, whose leaders are key Netanyahu allies, funding for settlements in the occupied West Bank considered illegal by most of the international community, and a new national Guards are requisitioned. Ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Netanyahu hailed the passage of the budget – which envisages spending Shk484bn in 2023 and Shk514bn in 2024 – as “the dawn of a new day” and said his government’s priority now is to reduce the cost of living in Israel. to reduce, where inflation has reached 5 percent.

Asked on Channel 14 News whether his government will now back down on a controversial judicial overhaul he delayed in March after one of the biggest waves of protests in Israel’s modern history, Netanyahu replied: Definitely”.

Benny Gantz, head of the National Unity Party, warned opposition leaders against resuming the judicial overhaul, accusing the prime minister of being “drunk with power once again”.

“I would remind Netanyahu that it is foolish to repeat the same action and expect a different result,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that protests would resume when the judicial overhaul returns.

Passage of the budget – without which early elections would have been triggered – was celebrated by Netanyahu’s coalition partners, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich saying it would “provide stability and certainty to the economy”. Ben-Gvir said the budget deal offered “a lot of good news”.

But opposition politicians criticized the spending package for doing little to rein in inflation and channeling vital resources to the ultra-conservative education system.

Funding for the Haredi education system is a particular cause of contention for secular Israelis because UltraOrthodox schools are not required to teach core subjects such as English and math, and instead have students spend much of their time studying Torah. .

Critics say the measures will discourage Haredi men – only half of whom work and almost none of whom do military service – from seeking employment. This will put increasing strain on Israel’s state budget over time as the Haredi share of Israel’s population is projected to grow from one-eighth today to nearly a third by 2065.

“While you were sleeping, the worst and most disastrous budget in the history of the country was passed. There is no good news. , , Only endless extortion,” Yair Lapid, leader of Yash Atid, the largest opposition party, wrote on Twitter.

“This budget is a breach of contract with the citizens of Israel, for which all of us and our children and our children’s children will still be paying.”