OCCUPIED AL-QUDS (Dispatches) -- Thousands of settlers have rallied in the occupied holy city of Al-Quds in protest at the Israeli prime minister’s plan to use public funds to buy the support of his extremist political allies.
The protesters amassed in front of the Knesset as it prepared to vote on the budget.
A day earlier, Netanyahu announced that the regime would grant married ultra-Orthodox Israelis, who are engaged in religious study rather than work, a total of 250 million shekels ($67.5 million) in the annual budget.
The grant was part of a last-minute deal with one of the ultra-Orthodox parties in the regime’s coalition of hard-right and ultra-Orthodox political parties to ensure the party’s support for the budget.
Chanting slogans, beating drums, and blowing horns, the protesters said the prime minister was seeking to “loot” public money to curry favor with his coalition allies.
The demonstration was organized by the same group of activists, who have been protesting since January at the cabinet’s similarly controversial plan to “overhaul” the regime’s judicial system.
Under that scheme, Netanyahu seeks to give the regime’s extremist cabinet more say in the process of selecting the Supreme Court’s judges, while seeking to empower the politicians and the Knesset to override the court’s rulings.
Hundreds of thousands have been protesting the so-called “reforms” on a weekly basis since January when Netanyahu announced them.
Faced with overwhelming public pressure, including the biggest protests ever seen across the occupied territories as well as several strikes, Netanyahu announced a pause in the scheme on March 27 to supposedly enable talks on the reforms.
Earlier this week, 280 leading economists warned in response to the budget announced by Netanyahu’s far-right coalition that
Israel is becoming a third world economy.
Details of this year’s budget were revealed by the occupation regime in a meeting held in a tunnel underneath Al-Aqsa Mosque.
In their warning reported by Haaretz, the academics cited massive subsidies expected to go towards the ultra-Orthodox school system, as well as bigger stipends for full-time yeshiva students.
The current far-right cabinet is heavily influenced by extreme religious parties. Netanyahu is said to have agreed last year to boost public funding substantially for ultra-Orthodox institutions that don’t teach core subjects such as maths and English, to the tune of billions of shekels a year.
According to Haaretz, concessions made by Netanyahu to build his far-right coalition include an agreement to boost stipends for ultra-Orthodox men who eschew full-time employment for lifetime study in institutes catering for advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature, or a traditional Jewish educational institution yeshiva for married men.
Netanyahu also agreed to increase funding for food vouchers from 850 million shekels ($234 million) to a billion shekels, despite warnings that the new system for determining eligibility would politicize the social welfare system.
“In order to enable integration into the labor market, children should receive an education that enables this, and adults should face incentives to do so,” the economists are reported as warning.
“Unfortunately, the Israeli regime not only does not deal with this dire issue, but also chooses measures that exacerbate the problem and deteriorate the future of Israel’s economy towards the Third World.”
Relations between the ultra-Orthodox and secular communities are extremely fraught in Occupied Palestine. Tensions are said to be extremely high, so much so that the two communities are “Heading for War” according to one Israeli commentator. Secular Zionists are said to be incensed over the billions of shekels earmarked for the Haredi community and their educational institutions.
According to education ministry documents obtained by Haaretz, in 2019 more than 90,000 Haredi students – 27 percent of all ultra-Orthodox students – were excused from studying core subjects that year. Resentment is fuelled further because the Haredi community is growing at a much higher rate than any other group and only contributes two percent to the regime’s revenue from income tax.