Israel okays budget change to prioritize defense goals, also unlocking funds for Haredi, settler interests
The cabinet approves a NIS 30 billion change to prioritize wartime needs in the remaining portion of Israel’s 2023 state budget amid strong objections that the plan will also send hundreds of millions of shekels to ultra-Orthodox and West Bank settler priorities.
The funds to both causes were already approved by the coalition as part of its political promises to partners, but frozen following the outbreak of the war on October 7.
The five war cabinet ministers from National Unity including party leader Benny Gantz, Chili Trooper, Gadi Eisenkot, and Gideon Sa’ar voted against the budget change and immediately left the plenum tonight.
Economy Minister Nir Barkat (Likud) had also previously threatened to vote against, and Likud minister Ofir Akunis abstained from the vote, saying that Israel’s economic strength pre-war was not guaranteed and that during an earlier committee meeting there was “broad consensus that there would be no spending on anything that is not related to the needs of the war.”
The budgetary changes were expected to overcome the six-vote opposition and now clear the 38-minister cabinet, moving to the Knesset for final approval.
Focusing on the last two months of 2023, the budget update diverts NIS 17 billion ($4.5 billion) to defense and NIS 13.5 billion ($3.64 billion) to civilian wartime needs, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at the Knesset earlier.
In October, the cabinet froze all funds for discretionary political priorities that had not yet been transferred out of the Finance Ministry, in order to reevaluate which resources could be diverted to the war effort. The attorney general later backed the move. Of the NIS 2.5 billion ($674 million) in these so-called coalition funds still available for reallocation, Smotrich said he cut some NIS 1.6 billion ($430 million), about 70 percent, to divert to the war effort.
The remaining 30% of coalition funds, which following approval can be transferred to various ministries and offices, include at least NIS 300 million ($81 million) for ultra-Orthodox private education, which skirts supervision by the Education Ministry, and what Hebrew media has reported as hundreds of millions of shekels to support settler priorities in the West Bank.
In addition, Smotrich told The Times of Israel that the budget update includes NIS 390 million ($105 million) for beefing up security and security infrastructure in the West Bank.
A source close to Gantz said earlier that the budget being presented to the government is “a finger in the public’s eye,” according to a statement released by his National Unity party.