Agreement reached on increase in defense budget

After a long political struggle, an agreement over an increase to the defense budget was reached Wednesday, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and Finance Minister Yair Lapid consented to a plan that would see NIS 7-8 billion ($1.9 – 2.2 billion) added this year. Another NIS 6 billion ($1.6 billion) will be added next year.

The added funds will cover the costs of  this summer’s 50-day Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, as well as training and personnel.

The meeting between the three senior leaders took six hours on the eve of the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Even with the increase, defense officials were not pleased. A senior official said that the NIS 6 billion increase for 2015 will mean that training and equipment purchase will be sharply curtailed, Israel Radio reported. He said that the implications of the budget will be presented to Netanyahu, the cabinet, and the relevant Knesset committee.

“If it is clear to both the Treasury and the defense establishment that the defense establishment will need, and receive, an increase next year, then what is this whole game for? Instead of solving this now in an organized fashion that respects all the sides, we are again being dragged into an unnecessary debate, whose end result is already known,” he said.

The sides also agreed that the national deficit should be 3.4% of the gross domestic product, and that taxes should not be raised.

The prime minister had been pushing for an additional NIS 20 billion ($5.5 billion) to be allocated to the defense establishment — NIS 9 billion to cover the costs of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza and NIS 11 billion for expanded operational and personnel spending.

Lapid and Netanyahu have been engaged in a semi-public political tug-of-war over the 2015 state budget for weeks, and Ya’alon in recent days has been outspoken in his push for more allocations to the IDF.

During the talks, Lapid has insisted that taxes not be raised to fund the increased spending, and that the government must take steps to improve the lot of Israel’s middle class.

The Yesh Atid party chief said Saturday that the sides were close to a deal and that Israel was now able to produce a budget that — even after a year that saw the longest military conflict in 30 years (against Hamas) — would not harm social welfare programs, “will not include new taxes,” and will feature clauses to improve education and housing availability.

The country’s top defense brass presented its budget request to the security cabinet earlier this month.

Last week at a Tel Aviv security conference, Ya’alon said that Israel’s defense needed “billions,” which it would be “irresponsible” to deny. He stressed that the defense budget had been cut in recent years “for political reasons,” so the requested increases were not extras, “but rather about correcting this distortion to cover the cost of Operation Protective Edge.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.