By Hezi Sternlicht, ISRAEL HAYOM
The moment has come to discuss facts and to talk about the nature of Israeli reality for what it is, instead of in the service of cheap, loud, and defective propaganda.
Through the 2015 election campaign, Yedioth Ahronoth and its various media tentacles attempted to brainwash the public. At any given moment, we were exposed to millions of hungry children, to a southern Israel plagued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, to the periphery suffering from battered-wife syndrome in its support of the Likud, to crumbling businesses, and to the economy being on the brink of collapse.
Every fleeting report by any research institute, including sometimes reports sponsored by foreign government with clear political agendas, received prominent coverage. Baseless theories, conjectures and arguments were presented as facts in dramatic headlines illustrating how terrible the situation here was, especially when it came to the economy.
It was explained that these elections have to be about the economy, not about the security situation. Alas, with the elections over, it has been made clear that Likud’s economic policies have actually benefited the public, and especially the lower socio-economic echelons.
This is why Yedioth’s financial affairs columnist Sever Plocker finally admitted on Sunday that come to think of it, “Israelis voted for another government led by Netanyahu due to economic reasons.” When Israel Hayom expressed similar views during the election campaign, it evoked hostility and cynicism, and was generally ignored.
Yedioth attempted to convince the public the economy was on the verge of recession, and that the people voting for Likud were a cross between Neanderthals and frightened individuals who felt obligated to vote for the ruling party.
Yedioth, however, failed to account for one scenario: Could it be that, between 2009 and 2015, Israelis’ financial situations — especially those of the residents of the periphery — have improved? Could it be that the socio-economic gaps have shrunk, and with them poverty rates? Could it be that public consumption is up, inflation is under control, unemployment is at an all-time low, and growth is permeating through all socio-economic echelons?
True, it is hard to become a homeowner nowadays. Housing prices have soared despite the various measures to try to curb them, and much needs to be done to defuse the ticking time bomb of inflated housing prices. Still, considerable progress has been made in other economic fields. Much needs to be done to help those who are less fortunate, but at the end of the day, could it be that the public understood it would be better off without the Left’s organized plans of economic destruction?
In some far-fetched, unlikely scenario, is it possible that the plans presented by Labor’s semi-Communist list would have ruined the economy, and that the public realized it? If that is the case, who would blindly and automatically vote for their camp? Could it be that the public believes policies promoting competition are what could lead to true economic justice?
Plocker was wise to see reality for what it is, although it was hardly a surprise that this happened only after the elections. Had the Zionist Union won, he probably would have kept the blinders on. It is not too late to begin reporting the facts, and to stop trying to inspire depression by brainwashing the public.
Whenever the labor party happens to be in the opposition or if it fails in elections, ‘spontaneous’ mobs are whipped up to occupy public spaces. Leftist newspapers will sanctimoniously bicker that “poverty was never as bad as it is today”.
This is simply not true.
According to the Israel Institute for Social Security, during the last 15 years, the Gini coefficient, a popular poverty index, after social grants and payments was always hovering around 0.36 in Israel.
Admittedly, various poverty measures in Israel are far too high above the OECD norm. Poverty in Israel is a sad legacy of an oversized socialist bureaucracy with stifling regulations.
A country like Switzerland can do with 7 ministers, one of whom doubles up as a president and prime minister in one person. The Swiss have a GDP per capita of US $84’344.
Israeli politicians think they require 20 ministers to govern. Unsurprisingly, Israel has a GDP per capita of only $38’004.
Like Israel, Singapore also started out very poor with pre-independence GDP per capita of US $ 511. Today they enjoy a GDP per capita of US $ 55’182.
If anyone actually has a chance to rid Israel of its red tape and rigid union laws and generate prosperity for the wide public, it will be right wing parties rather than labor with its failed ‘social message’.
ArnoldHarris Said:
world. Even the US is still having hard time.
Nice post by Hezi Sternlicht, who thinks like an economist, not a politician. Perhaps we are related–my grandfather was named Sternlicht and so was I until my father changed it due to Americans’ difficulty with the guttural ‘ch’.
@ ebyjeeby:
Politically-generated rumors are based most frequently on intense desires to elect someone or run someone else out of power, but rarely are backed by observable and measurable data.
But that’s a major outcome of democracy, and nobody can deny that Israel in fact is the only working democracy in the Middle East.
But one good side of Israel’s democracy is that the populace elect their various political parties and factions, and the elected Knesset members form the governments of the country. So there are no instances in Israel in which the government must fight its own separately elected law-making body. This arrangement works best when the governing coalition is all of the same or at least cooperative political bent, as we shall see now with the new government. Coalitions of both right and left never work out well in practice.
In contrast, the Congress of the United States, in whole or in part, frequently is controlled by the party in opposition to that of the presidency, which results in budgets that cannot be passed, policies which cannot be carried out, or attempts by the president to maneuver around the congress, which, in turn, leads to retributive actions on the part of the congress. We have seen a great deal of that lately, with much more to come.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I’d be interested in seeing the data behind both points of view.
That being the obvious case why is Netanyahu and his minions keep using “unity” with that as a whipping argument? Some degree of intellectual honesty, even for the caterva usually populating political parties, may come handy for us while we are under harsh attack fro foreign enemies.