Israel’s security needs ‘billions’ more, Ya’alon says

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned Monday that Israel’s future defense needs will require an expenditure of “billions” more, and said that slashes to the defense budget in recent years were politically motivated.

“Security costs money, and there are no cheap wars,” Ya’alon said in a speech at a cyber-security conference at Tel Aviv University. “We need another Iron Dome battery, we need more systems like David’s Sling and the Arrow-3 for multi-layer protection. Yes, this costs billions.”

“Think about the economic cost of the alternative — what would 4,500 missiles have cost without the Iron Dome?” he continued, referring to the rockets and mortar shells launched into Israel from Gaza during this summer’s 50-day conflict, many of which were shot down by Israel’s air defense system.

Ya’alon stressed that the IDF’s intelligence capabilities enabled it to carry out pinpoint strikes against enemies, a crucial factor in bringing Hamas to the negotiating table, but “this also costs billions… imagine a State of Israel that cannot defend its borders. This also costs billions.”

“The defense budget was cut for political reasons,” he said, and noted that in the current political debate about the state budget, when it came to defense, “we are not talking about additions but rather about correcting this distortion to cover the cost of Operation Protective Edge.”

“Not doing this would be irresponsible,” Ya’alon added.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid presented his proposed 2015 state budget Sunday, but was met with opposition over provisions to allow for heavier borrowing without increasing defense expenditure.

The proposed budget would keep taxes at their current level and raise the deficit cap to 3.18 percent of the gross domestic product, without specifying how much of the Defense Ministry’s requested increase would be added to its budget.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed for an additional NIS 20 billion ($550 billion) to be allocated to the defense establishment — NIS 9 billion to cover the costs of Operation Protective Edge and NIS 11 billion for upcoming expenses — a measure Lapid has opposed.

A late-night meeting between Netanyahu and Lapid over the budget ended inconclusively.

The Treasury said in a statement Sunday that the 2015 plan “responded to the needs of the Defense Ministry as well as social and civil needs,” but stressed that the security funds must be added “while staying within the prescribed expenditure framework.”

While the statement suggests that the Finance Ministry is in favor of giving more money to defense, a senior official told the Globes business website that Lapid is staunchly opposed to granting the NIS 11 billion addition.

The country’s top defense brass presented its budget request to the security cabinet two weeks ago during its weekly meeting, the first since Operation Protective Edge ended with an open-ended truce, stating that in order to meet the objectives the government has set for them, including ensuring the security of southern Israel, the defense forces would require more funds.

Earlier this month, the cabinet approved a proposal for slashing ministry budgets in order to help pay for the recent Gaza operation, the direct cost of which has been estimated at NIS 9 billion (about $2.5 billion). The cabinet voted to slash the budgets of all ministries except defense by 2 percent to make up some of the money, while Lapid has called for heavier borrowing instead of tax hikes to cover the rest.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.