"Why won’t you let me live?" Tali Levy, a 17 year old girl suffering from leukemia, demanded of the government this week. By sheer force of personality, and publicity, she made Minister of Finance Ya'akov Ne'eman provide the money for cancer drugs otherwise excluded from the "health basket" the State finances through the health funds.
Levy has not been the only one challenging the government’s social policies lately. 1,000 textile workers in Nazereth Elite face joblessness with closure of their factory. The Kitan textile company is relocating production to low-wage Jordan - imported unemployement is one result of the peace process. And of course there was the general strike, mainly over public sector employees’ pension rights, that ended on Monday.
These issues focus attention on the questions of how far Israel should go in abandoning its socialistic and protectionist past and adopting liberal, globally orientated economics, and how well the government is handling the transition.
On health policy, a "Ha'aretz" leading article of December 11 sounded a warning. The State Health Insurance Law was shaped by "important fundamental principles: universality, solidarity, and individual rights." The government’s proposals to give the health funds more discretion about which services are covered by mandatory, State backed health insurance will mean that "the Health Law will be gutted, and the health system will become a wild market place that turns its back on the weak."
For the sake of the next generation
The general strike was seen by many purely as a power struggle between the Minister of Finance and Histadrut (Trade Union Federation) chairman Amir Peretz, with Peretz prepared to ignore court injunctions against the strike in the attempt to shore up his own and his near bankrupt organisation’s political standing. The issue is not workers’ rights, wrote Avraham Tal ("Ha'aretz" December 5), "but Peretz and the workers’ committee gang’s threat to the rule of law, order, and public welfare."
Moshe Shamir ("Makor Rishon" December 5) went so far as accuse Peretz of aiming to bring down the government, and install a left-wing one ready to make sweeping concessions to the Palestinians. To him, Ya’akov Ne’eman’s comparison of some workers with terrorist bombers was therefore entirely apt. In "Ha'aretz" of December 8, Avraham Tal saw the time bomb as the burden which inflated pensions will bring. "Ne’eman is acting for the sake of the next generation, which this generation fails to consider."
Fear of the future
Nahum Baratz however ("Globes" December 7), saw the strike as fuelled by genuine fears about the future in a changing economy. Ya’akov Yonah ("Ma'ariv" December 11) called the reading of the strike as a personal clash between Ne’eman and Peretz "nonsense bordering on slander." He inveighed against "liberal fundamentalism," under which "the status of workers will one day change to that of slaves." All the political parties, claims Yonah, have abandoned the workers, and the Histadrut should set up a new one. Indeed, Sever Plocker ("Yediot Aharonot" December 9) observed that Labour Party leader Ehud Barak stood aside, and utterly failed to gain any political advantage from the strike.
All this, as Nahum Baratz points out, needs to be seen against the background of Zionism’s idealisation of the Hebrew worker. There is also the general Jewish idea of brotherhood. These things sit uneasily with widening income gaps, importation of foreign workers, and global markets and the concept of relative advantage. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the Gibor-Sabrina closure was that traditional industries must give way to high-tech, in which Israel excels, but Delta textile plant general manager Dov Lautman argued that high-tech industry will not solve the unemployment problem.
Tilting at windmills
Ya’akov Ne’eman’s performance in managing the Israeli economy in an era of change has come under scrutiny. The fact that he is an outsider, not a politician, was supposed to be an advantage. But Hannah Kim ("Ha'aretz" December 5) quotes Minister of Health Joshua Matza as having warned Netanyahu: "The Minister of Finance’s economic policies will severely damage the Likud in the next elections."
Ran Kislev ("Ha'aretz" December 11) sees Ne’eman’s lack of political awareness as leading him to tilt at windmills. The Histadrut, thinks Kislev, has been strengthened through the recent battle with Ne’eman. "Perhaps this is a good thing, but it is clearly not what Ne’eman intended."
Property rights first
Meir Bleich ("Ma'ariv" December 9) wrote: "Israeli society long ago abandoned the idea of mutual responsibility for more fashionable ideologies." He quotes an article from Haifa University law journal, which argues that the Basic Laws thus far enacted show that "Israel has chosen to put at the top of the list of rights she recognises, the right to property." A company, and even more so, the State, should have a more varied set of interests in view than enriching shareholders. Even the British, Bleich says, recognise that Thatcherism may have gone too far. Yehoshua Porat however ("Ma'ariv" December 10) thinks Ya’akov Ne’eman still has some way to go before he becomes worthy of the compliment of being called a Thatcherite.
Defending democracy
Hebrew University Professor of Labour Law Frances Raday ("Yediot Aharonot" December 8) further broadens the discussion. Ne’eman, she says, intends to dismantle basic social and economic rights in Israel through the State budget, circumventing public discussion. "The most important implication of the [Histadrut’s] battle with the Ministry of Finance is on the plane of democracy. Workers’ organisations, wittingly or no, have always served as a defensive wall for democracy against the threat of harm from an autocratic government."
Responses to Press Cuttings are welcome. Please send comments to davidg@globes.co.il
Israel’s Main Hebrew Dailies:
| Readership as % of population |
| | Weekday | Weekend |
| Yediot Aharonot | 48.4% | 62.5% |
| Ma’ariv | 23.5% | 33.3% |
| Ha’aretz | 7.1% | 9.8% |
| Globes | 3.5% | 2.8% |
The above figures are based on a survey carried out by the Israel Advertising Association in November 1996. The survey covered a sample of 2,500 people representing a cross-section of the population of Israel.
Other newspapers quoted in this week's column:
Makor Rishon - a new right-leaning weekly.
Recent Editions:
- Right Thinking (December 4, 1997)
Right wing ideology's response to the peace process under the Likud. Plus: Israeli ex-diplomats on Israel-US relations.
- Don’t Call Us, We Won’t Call You (November 27,1997)
Is Netanyahu showing sturdy independence in his
relations with the US, or undermining Israel’s vital interests?
- Democracy in the Balance (November 20, 1997)
The implications for Israeli democracy of Prime Minister Netanyahu's struggle for survival. Plus: The diplomatic threat from the Iraq crisis.
- Is The Party Over? (November 13, 1997)
The Likud central committee regains control of its Knesset members’ destinies - something has to give.