Israel: Writing Checks with Your Mouth Your Butt Can’t Cash, Part Two

In all ways imaginable, the Israeli government failed its own citizens by leaving them to fend for themselves. They had military planners and the help of the White House when it came to launching their war, but they failed in the most basic of tasks: taking care of their own on the home front and leaving it to overwhelmed charity groups. In some ways, it reminds me of the exceptionally poor performance of the US government during Hurricane Katrina – a little bit a lot too late, shrouded in apologizes, excuses and promises to “do better the next time around” with all the “lessons learned” and no one actually held responsible. Those empty words ring hollow for every elderly and disabled person who was left in the northern part of the country to fend for themselves and is an experience they should’ve never went through in the first place.

The Israeli government seems to be in the same position every time: letting their citizens down. A case in point is a portion from a Letter to the Editor in the Jerusalem Post dated 9/04/06: “Israeli society seems to accept the hand-outs without embarrassment. The fact that our governments are incapable of taking responsibility for the most of human rights of any society is a given.” Where is all the money going with this government? Is it corruption or poor management?

To go back to the scene of the crime, we now know that Israel had approximately a $1.84 billion surplus thanks to higher tax revenues while during the same time, poverty experienced by those in Israel hit an all-time high. The average person who was below the poverty line to begin with will certainly find the various forms of assistance undoubtedly curtailed. Imagine what $1.84 billion could have done to positively impact the lives of these citizens?

• Better quality of healthcare.
• Medicine for the poor.
• Food assistance.
• Rent subsidies.
• Utilities subsidies.

I’m not big on social programs because they come at the expense of the middle class (the wealthy get the tax breaks and loopholes), but there comes a responsibility for every nation to care for those who through whatever set of unfortunate circumstances, cannot survive without additional help. Let’s face it – with such a small amount put aside, it would’ve been better to have banked the surplus into “rainy day fund” to gather interest, or to reinvest it back into the social system to give these people a hand up, not a hand out.