Netanyahu vows to push economic reform, ‘like Herzl’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said he would continue to push for economic reforms to increase competition, including a lowering of vehicle taxes and extensive changes at Israel’s ports despite threats of strikes.

Speaking at a Knesset session marking the 153rd birthday of Theodor Herzl, Netanyahu asserted that the Zionist visionary would have approved of a capitalistic Israel with open markets, privatized industries and economic competition.

He said he “always believed that the Israeli economy needs to open up, allow competition and dismantle monopolies. We created a very centralized economy, which was not in accordance with Herzl’s vision. As the market becomes more competitive, it will serve all citizens, especially the weak.”

The speech came days after the Cabinet passed the Open Skies agreement, meant to foster competition in the aviation industry and lower airfare rates. On Wednesday, the prime minister pushed forward with a bid to build a private seaport in either Haifa or Ashdod.

Netanyahu also said that the anti-Semitism of Herzl’s day, which caused him to promote the idea of an independent, modern nation-state for the Jews, has been recast as anti-Zionism.

“Anti-Semitism is only taking a timeout,” he said. “Instead of directly anti-Jewish talk, which is no longer polite among Western elites, today they’ve decided to denounce, denigrate and deny the right of the Jewish state to exist.”

Opposition leader MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) sharply disagreed with the prime minister’s assessment of Herzl as capitalist.

“Zionism is not only the very establishment of the state… but also what education and welfare system it will have,” she said. “Herzl thought that a roof [over people’s heads] was the state’s responsibility. He believed in the business sector, but did not intend there to be 50 tycoons, rather 500,000 small-business owners.”

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) was an Austrian journalist who conceived the idea of a modern Jewish state after coming to believe that Jews, even secular ones like himself, could never fully integrate into Europe because of deeply ingrained anti-Semitism. He promoted the idea relentlessly during his lifetime and is considered the father of modern Zionism.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein said that Herzl “revolutionized consciousness… Herzl’s legacy is freedom and responsibility to determine our own destiny… [his] vision lied in his astute political insight: The Jews see themselves as a nation, one people; not as individual communities lacking national identity.”