Far-right minister claims some fellow cabinet members can’t make ends meet

Far-right lawmaker Orit Strock, the national missions and settlements minister, claimed there are government ministers who are struggling financially, according to a Sunday report.

“No ministers get fat salaries, I know ministers who don’t manage to make ends meet each month even though they work very hard, night and day — and there are even those whose parents are supporting them financially,” Strock said in the WhatsApp message in an argument with party insider Eliran Yaish, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

Ministers in the government make NIS 58,274 ($15,568) per month; the average monthly salary in Israel is around NIS 12,379 ($3,289).

Strock made the remarks as Yaish pushed back against a usage tax for electric vehicles, slated to go into effect in 2026, of NIS 0.15 ($0.04) per kilometer, which was approved in the revised budget for 2024 that included cuts to offset military costs amid the ongoing war with the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.

“Maybe we’ll start with you paying for the vehicles you receive, it’s time you also cut back on all the bounty you receive,” Yaish wrote.

“Less of the evil eye and more substantive and constructive criticism,” Strock shot back and suggested that if Yaish had a better budget plan he should put it forward.

In a statement responding to the report, Strock’s office said she had proposed during budget discussions “a horizontal cut in the salaries of all senior officials in the civil service, including the salaries of ministers, as a measure of public solidarity.

“Beyond that, the minister will not respond to screenshots of her private correspondence with citizens who contact her, which are partially and tendentiously leaked,” it added.

Strock’s ministry, created in negotiations to form the current government, has faced criticism from opposition lawmakers who say it is an “invented” and “political” office devoted to channeling money to the electorate of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Strock’s Religious Zionism party.

The outspoken Strock has in the past raised hackles, most recently at the end of last month when she reportedly put it to a top-ranking military official at a cabinet meeting that Israel Air Force pilots are refusing to bomb targets in Gaza for reasons of conscience, denying ground forces of necessary air support.