Report reveals 1.6 million Israelis living in poverty

international | anti-capitalism | other press

Wednesday September 06, 2006 12:24

by T

A quarter of the Israeli population living in poverty

A report by Israel’s National Insurance Institute shows that another 100,000 people fell below the poverty line in Israel bringing the total impoverished to 1.6m or 24.7% of the population. The report also indicated that Israel at 35% had the highest child poverty rate amongst capitalist countries. Much of this has been caused by various cutbacks in social spending from previous military adventures with further cuts planned as a result of the most recent war in Lebanon. Unemployment is also running at 9%.

This report is interesting because it provides an insight into Israeli that we don't normally here about and reveals there are sharp differences between the haves and have nots and their are clearly deep social problems. It also shows that Israeli capitalism is quite happy to impoverish their own despite the rhethoric we so often hear to the contrary.

For example the reports says:

A striking feature of the NII report is the rise of the “working poor”. Poverty in Israel is by no means restricted to the unemployed, elderly, and disabled. As the country has become more closely integrated into the global economy, the wages and conditions of working people have been systematically downgraded. In order to maintain the profit rates of Israeli companies and to attract international investment, successive governments have privatised state industries, removed business regulations and lowered taxes for the wealthy........

........A study conducted by the Adva Centre, “Workers, Employers, and the Distribution of Israel’s National Income”, examined recent changes in the social position of the working class. The report found that since 2003, 65 percent of all new jobs were part-time and predominantly low paid. An extraordinary 20 percent of all new jobs created for men in the past five years were generated as a direct result of the Palestinian uprising, in security and other non-productive industries. Despite productivity increases, average wages have declined since 2000 and two-thirds of workers now receive less than $US320 a week.

And the report clearly demonstrates how no matter where, it is always the poor that end up paying for the costs of war:

Israel’s offensive in Lebanon will worsen the poverty rate, both through direct reconstruction costs in the north and through cuts to social spending to fund the Israeli Defence Forces’ rearmament. According to the Israel Institute of Social and Economic Research, an additional 50,000 people will fall below the poverty line this year.

The Olmert government has proposed an initial round of budget cuts worth $1.7 billion. The measures advanced by Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson include further reducing child allowances, raising the age of entitlement to unemployment allowance from 20 to 28, increasing university tuition fees by 50 percent, cutting grants for discharged soldiers, firing public service workers and privatising the postal service.

The government intends to make the working class pay for the Lebanon war. Shortly after tabling his budget proposal, Hirchson wrote a grovelling letter to the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, assuring big business that tax cuts scheduled to take effect over the next four years would not be reversed.

It is quite clear that much of the extreme right-wing politics of that country serves to distract and divide the population and take the focus off social conditions and real peace, so as to continue the status quo and allow the great disparties to exist. That is their purpose.

The full report can be found at the URL below