Deri: Bank rampage is a wake-up call from the poor

A statement by a senior Bank Hapoalim official, linking Itamar Alon’s deadly rampage at the bank’s Beersheba branch Monday to harsh rhetoric against Israeli banks employed by social activists, ignited a public debate Tuesday over the role Israel’s economic difficulties and planned austerity measures played in motivating Alon’s attack.

Alon killed four people and seriously injured another before taking his own life at a Bank Hapoalim branch after he was refused a NIS 6,000 ($1,600) loan.

“There is no doubt that public sentiment against Israel’s banks enabled, one way or another, the shooting incident in Beersheba,” an unnamed senior Bank Hapoalim official told reporters. He said that widespread discontent with financial institutions has created a “feeling of insecurity among [bank] employees” and that “it is very possible that people on the edge, like the killer, sense this mood.”

“We’ve seen people set fire to themselves, people have barricaded a bank and threatened to commit suicide and now we see a man who took a gun and shot innocent people,” the official added, referring to incidents that took place last year including the self-immolation of social activist Moshe Silman, who set fire to himself during a Tel Aviv rally, protesting mistreatment by the National Insurance Institute.

“There is no justification for this horrible act,” Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri said on Tuesday. “But this shocking incident should be taken as a wake-up call. At the very least, this was a man who fell apart due to poverty. I call again on the government of Israel to think before they pass a brutal budget that could make thousands of new families join the ranks of the poor.”

Deri’s statement was echoed by Ran Melamed, vice president of Yedid, an NGO that operates legal rights and financial assistance centers around the country. “We have warned for months that the situation is getting worse and is pushing many more people to great distress,” he told the Maariv daily on Tuesday. “With desperate people you never know what they might do. This event should send a clear message to the government and to the Knesset — you need to change your thinking about the state budget.”

The Rabbis for Human Rights organization, in similar vein, said in a statement: “We were horrified to hear about the murder and injury of innocent people in Beersheba. [At our] rights center we have seen in the last year a significant increase in the number of applicants asking for assistance with debt. Many have lost the ability to manage the economics of their life, and come to despair. Unfortunately, these people do not get effective assistance from the government.”

But Labor Party leader and opposition head Shelly Yachimovich rejected the connection between Alon’s deadly actions and his finances. She wrote on Facebook that “murder is murder — going through a deep crisis doesn’t justify committing a massacre… The state is responsible for its citizens, but the individual is responsible for his own actions too.”