It is already a week ago that one of our ministers, Tzachi Hanegbi, declared as “nonsense”( a cleaned-up expression), the statement that in Israel as a result of the Corona crisis, people are going hungry. Of course this incredible uttering was quickly overtaken by other scandalous events of which we have no lack, but the poverty and hunger still remain.
With a million people being out of work, without income and with minimal Social Security coverage, if at all, savings are running out and credit card limits are overrun. People do not have the means to purchase food, not for themselves and not for their children. The help of family and neighbors is very welcome and very necessary, but many are in the same situation, and the refrigerator simply is empty.
(In Lebanon, a group of photographers started making pictures of people in frot of their empty refrigerators. Maybe something we can try out?)
But of course somebody like Hanegbi or any of his cronies in the Israeli government would have no inkling that this is happening in the real world. He is a minister without Portfolio. In effect that means that he doesn’t have anything to do, but was made a minister only because Netanyahu needs him in his sphere of dependents, without too much rancor being displayed at inopportune moments.
For this doing nothing, Hanegbi receives on a monthly basis, NIS 50,623 . There are people that even before the Corona crisis had to make do a whole year with such an income, the minimum wage in Israel being NIS 4,300. And of course Hanegbi receives a car, with a driver, a secretary, an office, an assistant, a full pension (100%!) after five Knesset terms (even if it is less than a full term), medical insurance, life-long reimbursement for telephone expenses, and I am sure I missed quite a number of additional benefits of being a minister and a member of the Knesset.
So why should he know or care that there is poverty and hunger in Israel? He doesn’t need these people, except to vote for him every now and then (why people still vote for him, or for his boss, Netanyahu, is a phenomenon that historians in the future will research for many years).
Did Hanegbi ever need to search for his meal in the garbage bins after the market closes? Did Hanegbi ever have to beg for a scrap of food for his children? Was Hanegbi ever confronted with the incredible pain to have to tell his children there is nothing to eat when they come to him because they are hungry? Did Hanegbi ever have to send his children to bed without dinner?
It is no surprise then, that when he is being told that there is poverty in Israel and that people go hungry, he reacts with indignation. He doesn’t know, because he doesn’t care. He is intelligent enough to understand that if it were true, and people really were going hungry, he and his 36 other 50,000 shekel earning friends in the government are to blame, so it is better to deny it, to ignore it, and maybe it will go away by itself.
The Corona crisis has hit Israel hard and it has caused poverty and hunger all over the country. But it is nothing new. And Hanegbi and his ministerial friends are not only denying the poverty and hunger the population has to deal with today. This denial has been going on for years.
Poverty and hunger was not caused by the Corona crisis. It was aggravated by it but is was here long before February 2020. According to the latest published data by the National Insurance Institute, in 2018, 21.2% of the Israeli population lived below the poverty line, which includes almost one out of every three children in Israel. That is 880,230 children, who do not know where their next meal will come from and who do go to sleep hungry sometime.
Poverty has affected especially the young and the old, with heartbreaking stories popping up every now and then of older people having to decide between buying food or buying medicine, which of course attract a lot of attention, for a day or two and are quickly forgotten, including by our legislators.
While people like Dr. Michael Sarel (Globes January 2020) believe that the NII data are being manipulated and calls them demagoguery, reality is different. I am sure you can look at the numbers from different points of view and no doubt it becomes much easier when you are not included in those numbers, but for the people that live in poverty, you may call it inequality, “no sense of want” (what is that?!?!?), or claim that the situation has “significantly improved”, but would you Dr. Sarel, be able to use that as an argument to explain to your child you have no food to give him?
The Israeli governments, including Hanegbi, have ignored and denied the existence of poverty and hunger, except maybe on the level of promises to improve it. Promises that were mostly forgotten even before they were completely uttered and were never meant to show even a willingness to contribute to solving the problem.
And it is a matter of choice. This government and all the ones before it in the past 20 years have made decisions to go forward with all kinds of plans improvements and policies, while ignoring the poverty and hunger. Budgetary excuses simply will not do it. Spending money is a matter of setting priorities. And if your government prefers spending 100 billion dollars on occupying the West Bank, or setting up a government of 36 ministers and numerous deputy ministers which costs approximately NIS 238 million annually, it is not surprising that reducing poverty and hunger is not high on their agenda and no money will be left.
That doesn’t mean, the government, the ministers, the deputy ministers, the Knesset members, don’t know, they simply do not care. Isn’t it time we remember this when a new election comes around?
