The Knesset Finance Committee, which is controlled by Likud, voted late on Sunday to give out 12 million shekels ($3.1 million) – almost of it for educational and outreach organization affiliated with the haredi parties. This follows a $3.3 million grant to a West Bank settler project.
Netanyahu Doles Out Millions Of Dollars To Haredim And Settlers, Allegedly In Exchange For Knesset Support
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
It’s transparently corrupt but completely legal.
Israel’s Knesset election is fast approaching, and that means the Knesset is hard at work doling out money to haredim in the hope that haredi political parties will throw their support behind chosen candidates for prime minister – in this case, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu, the head of the Likud Party.
The Knesset Finance Committee, which is controlled by Likud, voted late on Sunday to give out 12 million shekels ($3.1 million) – almost of it for educational and outreach organization affiliated with the haredi parties, Ha’aretz reported.
The total amount of government grants this year to haredi organizations, including the Sefardi haredi Shas Party’s El Hama’ayan and Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism’s Toda’ah, has now risen to 30 million shekels ($7.7 million).
MKs Moshe Gafni (UTJ) and Yitzhak Cohen (Shas) fought for the extra money and told lawmakers that the organizations would have to lay off staff if they didn’t get the money.
The formal request for the appropriation of the money, however, came from the Treasury – which is under the direct control of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since he forced out Finance Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid Party last month, causing the government to fall and new elections to be scheduled.
But Netanyahu has been openly courting haredi parties for months, hoping to secure their support so he could force out Lapid and his party and other Likud rivals from the coalition government without toppling the government at the same time. When that failed – in large part because Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of the secular, right-wing and largely Russian Yisrael Beiteinu Party and Netanyahu’s former ally, refused to sit in a coalition with haredi parties – Netayahu forced out Lapid, his party, and other moderates, and toppled the government, but only after making it clear to haredi political leaders that he would give them almost anything they ask for if they join his governing coalition after the election.
MK Rabbi Yaakov Litzman (UTJ) defended the 12 million shekel grant to haredi organizations.
“We needed to allocate the money to Torah institutions, whose budgets have been cut, because otherwise hundreds of people would have been fired. Both the attorney general and the speaker of the Knesset acknowledged this need to transfer the money,” Litzman reportedly said.
The Knesset Finance Committee also approved a 12.8 million shekels ($3.3 million) to build a visitor center in the West Bank’s Barkan Industrial Zone, – a move opposition MKs saw as Netanyhu’s pandering to the Zionist Orthodox parties and voters.
“Netanyahu is helping out the haredim and the settlers to win their support in the event he forms a coalition after the elections,” a Knesset source, who asked not to be named, told Ha’aretz.
Since the centrist Yesh Atid and Hatnuah partiers were pushed out of the coalition by Netanyahu, the government has only been able to get a Knesset majority with the help of the two haredi parties, Shas and UTJ – even though both parties are officially part of the opposition. They even supported the 12.8 million shekels for the West Bank visitor center – a Zionist Orthodox project. They also supported a 1 billion shekel ($260 million) increase in the defense budget and also transferring money to West Bank settlements.
“We’re talking about corruption[,] allocation of funds, which are being handed over in exchange for support of the haredi parties of the coalition. In addition we’re talking about an advance payment of billions that the haredi parties plan to demand before [the Knesset] approves the next budget,” Reform Rabbi Uri Regev, the head of the Hiddush freedom of and from religion advocacy organization, reportedly said in disgust.