MK (Yahadut Hatorah) Menachem Eliezer Moses used his last address to the Knesset plenum before the bill to dissolve Knesset was passed to speak of the accomplishments of the outgoing administration. He stated the coalition was ruled by the Yesh Atid party. “The impact on the chareidi children aside, there is not a single area in which the outgoing administration succeeded” he added.
In the last plenum session before the vote to send the nation to elections, the chareidi MK spoke of the “many accomplishments” of the outgoing administration”.
“Yesh Atid came with the [election] slogan ‘we are here to make change’” explained Moses, adding the party promised and delivered a coalition without chareidim along with promising to improve the economy, social services, healthcare, housing, lower the cost of living, address the middle class and improve education.
Moses added “The administration was in office for a year and eight months, during which the economy has declined and the number of poor has increased, including many children and the elderly. The healthcare system and hospitals are collapsing; the price of housing has increased and the failed Zero VAT Bill only served to push prices up. The cost of living is on the rise and the middle class is losing ground. Schools are showing poorer results based on international parameters. Today this coalition, among the worst ever, marked the end of its tenure. The government that boycotted and disqualified a million Israeli for the simply reason they wear a yarmulke on their heads and appear chareidi. Their children were harmed simply because they are chareidi. They became a target towards uprooting Kodshei Yisrael. There was no glue that could keep this coalition together. The common denominator between its components was disdain and hatred for chareidim”.
Moses continued, pointing out almost every paragraph of the state budget mentions chareidim of an education institute. He reminded his colleagues that monthly child payments were cut and nonprofits were hit hard. The Nahari Law that compels local government to assist frum schools was canceled he explained, and budgeting for high-risk youths in a boarding facility has all but been eliminated. 600 million shekels have been cut from yeshivos and kollel funding and 11,000 avreichim are living on the edge of starvation as they incomes were cut or eliminated.
He reminded his colleagues “The next time they tell you the chareidim are to blame for everything including the national deficit, remind them that not too long ago there was a government that boycotted and discriminated against chareidim and not only did the situation not improve, it got significantly worse”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
The goal of the Netanyahu-Bennett-Lapid government was to strike a blow against the hareidim, whom they see as an existential threat to the continued existence of the zionist state (the Arabs are most a nuisance). Time will tell if their measures worked, or if the government will need to back down after the election.
Did the government have any other goals?
Excellent points. But I don’t see how a country where the politicians are only interested in self gratification can ever put together a workable coalition. it’s every man for himself.
It’s not so much “self-gratification” as the result of proportional representation with a low “threshold” allowing many parties with narrow agendas. While Israel is good at being inclusive, the price is that it is harder to reach a consensus.