Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman engaged in unprecedented incitement against Chareidim in a prime-time press conference about a plan to lower the soaring cost of living in Israel, which benefits only middle-class families and completely ignores the weakest sectors.

Bennett announced a series of tax cuts and daycare subsidies for middle-class working families only or what he called “good families,” continuing in the rhetoric of Lieberman, who said on Monday that Chareidim are one of the main reasons for the soaring cost of living. However, in this case, non-Chareidi low-income families are apparently also to blame for the situation, and are considered “bad families.”

“There’s a value statement here,” Bennett said, specifically mentioning Chareidim and standing by Lieberman’s side while he repeated his claims that the Chareidi unemployment rate is to blame for the situation. “People need to work…we need to help those who work. Those who work deserve to save more.”

The plan stands in sharp contrast to the plan formulated by then-prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and finance minister Yisrael Katz during the extended COVID lockdown, which distributed grants to all Israeli citizens without differentiation.

The incitement was condemned even by members of Bennett’s coalition. Deputy Knesset speaker Eitan Ginzburg (Blue and White) told Kikar H’Shabbat: “No population should be blamed for the rise in the cost of living, definitely not in a sweeping way. Chareidim aren’t responsible.”

Labor MK Naama Lazimi and Blue and White MK Michael Biton also criticized the plan for benefitting only the middle-class, while excluding other groups who are suffering from the high cost of living as well.

Lazimi told Radio 103FM: “The plan is not what needs to be done today to address the high cost of living. The high cost of living is the result of a 20-year process and it’s one of the state’s biggest problems. A couple who earns minimum wage lives in poverty, which is unthinkable.”

Biton, who is the chairman of the Knesset’s Economy Committee, said he’s unable to support the plan in its present form, which he pointed out calls for a family from Hod HaSharon to receive NIS 5,352 in tax benefits while a family from Dimona (which has many economically disadvantaged families) to receive NIS 0. He also criticized the fact that no plan has been presented for small and medium-sized businesses and elderly people who don’t have a pension plan.

UTJ MK Yaakov Asher responded to the plan by stating: “The only news that Bennett and Lieberman conveyed to Israeli citizens was: ‘It will continue to be bad but you can comfort yourself by the fact that the Chareidim and the weakest sectors will have it even worse.'”

Other measures in the plan include the temporary cancellation of taxes on coal to reduce the expected rise of electricity costs and a reduction of tariffs on a number of imported goods such as food and furniture, which sounds promising but won’t necessarily make a difference to customers’ pockets and may only benefit the importers.

Likud MK Shlomo Karchi said: “Instead of repairing what they ruined and lowering taxes, instead of opening the market to real competition and removing barriers and instead of lowering the excise tax on fuel and VAT on electricity and water, they present us with small, stingy steps that leave the weakest sectors helpless and continue to raise costs in the periphery. They’re solely trying to tend to the PR image of this terrible government and made no reference of assistance to businesses and those affected by the coronavirus.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)