welfare

Thu 5 May 2005
The Jerusalem Post
Is poverty here to stay?

A pack of media mavens, notably Ruth Sinai of Haaretz, savaged Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, claiming his adoption of the Irish model would result – and indeed has already resulted, they claim – in increased, rather than diminished, poverty. Definitely so, if you subscribe to the statistical nonsense that misrepresents the number of the poor by making it dependent on relative rather than real values.

Thu 28 Aug 2003
The Jerusalem Post
About deception and decency

My previous column, “NIF’s not-so-hidden political agenda” (14 August 2003) claimed that the New Israel’s Fund website misrepresented its Negev Beduin program as yet another civil rights initiative. I thought it was a calculated effort to radicalize the Beduin and provoke a confrontation between an erstwhile loyal community and Israel.

Through its Shatil executive arm the New Israel Fund has supported Beduin who break Israeli law by seizing strategic government land, apparently with Palestinian Authority help and encouragement. Shatil activists named this project “The Palestinian Project,” even though the Beduin are Israeli citizens, not Palestinian ones. In this way they try further to erode Beduin fealty to Israel and transfer it to the PA.

Thu 14 Aug 2003
The Jerusalem Post
NIF’s not-so-hidden political agenda

The New Israel Fund’s director, Eliezer Ya’ari, recently denied charges that his fund, and its Shatil subsidiary, are exploiting the single mothers’ protest to promote a radical leftist and anti-Zionist political agenda, and that they have patronizingly imposed the unelected Knafo group as “representative leadership.”

He insisted that the NIF is “an apolitical civic organization” assisting “social change” and human rights, providing a voice to weakened sectors. Ya’ari never defines what kind of “social change” the NIF promotes, but the fact that almost all of the many organizations Shatil has spawned among immigrants and “development-town” residents espouse a radical leftist ideology, while none are centrist or right, makes it clear.

Thu 31 Jul 2003
The Jerusalem Post
Poverty persists in Israel because the poor are manipulated

It is now certain. The heart-rending march of Vikki Knafo and the single mothers’ protest were not spontaneous but an effort organized and manipulated by several bodies with a political ax to grind.

One of the chief organizers of the protest, Vered Bracha Steinberg, helped secure for Knafo tents and food from Meretz and from the Histadrut, and transportation from the Modi’in municipality. According to her these bodies, and above all Shatil, the crypto-Marxist executive arm of The New Israel Fund, recognized the political potential of Knafo’s protest, and proceeded to cynically exploit it. By its own admission, Shatil used Knafo to foment a ‘social revolution’ designed at least to undermine Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms and perhaps even bring down Sharon’s government.

Thu 17 Jul 2003
The Jerusalem Post
The passion of Vikki Knafo

Vikki Knafo, the single mother determined to foment a “social revolution” in Israel, is obviously a can-do person.

In a normal social and economic environment her energy and determination would probably have enabled her to build a successful career despite being a divorcee raising three children. But the Israeli welfare state and the leftist ideology that inspires it have made Vikki a victim.

Thu 3 Jul 2003
The Jerusalem Post
Who is poor and why

The Histadrut and the “social lobby”, a medley of advocacy groups galvanized by the Histadrut, are the most bitter opponents of Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms. The reforms are hurting society’s weaker strata, especially the poor, they claim.

Although no one needs to starve in Israel, there are indeed hundreds of thousands of unemployed as well as those dependent on supplementary income who, caught between low incomes and monopoly-inflated costs, find it difficult to make ends meet.