Misguided strike

With much fanfare and media coverage, Histadrut labor federation chairman Ofer Eini declared during a press conference Tuesday that all unionized workers would launch a general strike after Succot.

Ostensibly, the strike – which would paralyze the economy at a time when leading economists are warning of an international recession that is likely to have an adverse impact on Israel’s economy – is designed to put pressure on the government to improve the working conditions of public sector workers employed via outsourcing arrangements.

These workers, who number in the hundreds of thousands, often lack basic social benefits and cannot acquire seniority (they are often fired and rehired yearly). And the low salaries they receive do not result in lower state expenditures, since middlemen pocket hefty commissions.

However, in addition to championing the cause of these workers, a cause arguably under the purview of the Histadrut as a labor union, Eini has also apparently joined forces with leaders of this summer’s socioeconomic protests and dragged unionized workers into a decidedly political battle against the Trajtenberg Committee recommendations, which were ratified by the cabinet this week.

The Histadrut and the tent-city protesters make strange bedfellows: Much of the high cost of living criticized by the protesters is a direct result of the high salaries paid to public sector workers at state-run monopolies such as the Israel Electric Corporation, the Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat ports and the Israel Airports Authority that are represented by Eini. According to an annual public sector wage report released by the Treasury Monday, the average monthly salary in the Israel Electric Corporation in 2010 was NIS 21,354, at Haifa Port it was NIS 24,805, at Ashdod Port it was 24,557, at Israel Railways it was NIS 37,639 and in government offices it was NIS 13,630, compared to a national average of NIS 8,900.

And Eini is considered a close associate of senior business leaders thoroughly vilified by the protest movement.

Even if we ignore Eini’s flagrant abuse of union power for the sake of influencing the government’s macroeconomic policy, the Histadrut chairman’s stated objective of reducing the number of workers employed via contractors sound disingenuous.

Precisely the sorts of restrictive collective work agreements successfully negotiated by the Histadrut in the past are one of the root causes for the growth in the use of outsourced workers. Labor and management flexibility in the public sector is low, which means that after an employee is hired it is extremely difficult to make him or her redundant.

Also, public sector workers receive salary raises based solely on seniority, regardless of the quality of their work.

In fact, there are no criteria in place for evaluating public sector workers’ productivity or work ethic. Transferring workers from one public sector position where they are no longed needed to another where they are is difficult, as is the introduction of new technologies that require workers to undergo additional training.

Under the circumstances, it should come as no surprise that the public sector employs an inordinately high number of outsourced workers to compensate for the inherent lack of flexibility in the public sector. If it weren’t so inefficient and expensive to employ public sector workers directly, there would be no need for so many outsourced workers.


In its recommendations, the Trajtenberg Committee called on the government “to work toward a new work arrangement in the public sector that introduces more flexibility and enables the recruitment of higher quality manpower. Recognition of excellence on the basis of systematic evaluations coupled with an effective process of layoffs would help achieve this goal.”

However, Eini and the public sector workers he represents reject Trajtenberg’s eminently wise advice. Understandably, they do not want to give up their favorable working conditions and high salaries.

But if Eini were truly sincere about eradicating the phenomenon of outsourced workers, or at least reducing their numbers, he would be pushing for reforms within the public sector that would make it easier to transform many outsourced workers into full-fledged employees, instead of calling for a general strike.

Egypt's shaky rule

A day after Cairo’s streets were marred with bloodshed that left 24 dead and hundreds wounded, Egypt’s future appeared even more uncertain.

Like the September 9 storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo by enraged Egyptian masses, Sunday’s violence, sparked by Christian Copts’ outrage at the desecration of one of their churches, was yet another reminder of the potential dangers in store for Egypt as it gropes haltingly for a more enlightened and democratic leadership.

In the initial stages of mayhem and killing – the worst spasm of violence since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in February – it seemed that demonstrations staged by the Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population (but who are apparently leaving Egypt in large numbers since March) transformed into a more general protest against the ruling military junta – Egypt’s Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF).


Protesters chanted, “The people want to bring down the field marshal,” adapting the signature chant of the Tahrir Square protests, to call for the resignation of the military’s top officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

At one point, however, it appeared that military and riot police had joined forces with Muslim demonstrators chanting “The people want to bring down the Christians.”

Several protesters were crushed to death when military vehicles rammed into the crowds.

Divisions among the various sectors of Egyptian society are so numerous and deep that it is difficult to imagine any of the existing options for political leadership fostering stability when parliamentary elections are launched on November 28.

The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, who stand to garner around 30% to 40% of the vote, are remarkably united – while leftists, radical nationalists and moderates are divided. With Islamists likely to emerge with the single largest vote, this could result in a head-on clash with Copts and various secularist groups who had hoped for the protections of a pluralistic, democratic state, and would be alienated by intolerant Islamist rule.

Leaders of the military junta, meanwhile, would fight the Islamists to maintain their hegemony.

Still, whether or not democratic elections are good for Egypt, it seems they are unavoidable. Under immense pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood and other political parties who threatened to boycott elections if SCAF went ahead with plans to delay them or postpone other reforms, the SCAF hastily reached a compromise which will apparently facilitate parliamentary elections as planned on November 28.

Perhaps the most controversial part of the agreement is SCAF’s demand to postpone presidential elections.

Instead of holding them in April 2012, they will be held in April 2013. In the interim, the military junta will hold onto executive powers, while the newly elected upper and lower houses of the Egyptian parliament work to hammer out a constitution.

If reports are true and all goes as planned, the delay of presidential elections could potentially be a positive development. Keeping the military junta in power, at least in an executive function, could help avoid a major confrontation between Egypt and the West – in particular America and Israel – even if the parliament is taken over by Islamist and radical nationalist parties.

But pressure is building among diverse groups to reinstate the April 2012 date for presidential elections so as to enable a quick transition to civil rule.

If SCAF is forced to relinquish rule next year, this could increase the chances that the sort of anarchy and internal strife witnessed on the streets of Cairo Sunday night will spread. And this could have a negative impact on, among other things, Egypt’s long-lasting peace treaty with Israel.

Having just commemorated the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Anwar Sadat on October 6, we should be wary of the potential for sudden, and violent, change on our border to the south.

Ideally, the transition to civilian rule is an admirable goal. But in Egypt’s present political reality, it could lead to further bloodshed and strife.

Debating civil marriage

A group of organizations petitioned the High Court last week demanding that it order the state to pass legislation that permits civil marriages.

They rightly argued that the status quo is discriminatory.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, including about 300,000 immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union and their offspring, and some foreign workers who are gradually undergoing a naturalization process, are living in an untenable state of civil ambiguity.

These people are seen as full-fledged Israeli citizens.

They are expected to serve in the IDF, to fight and if necessary to die to defend the Jewish state.


They pay taxes and perform other civic functions expected of citizens. But because they are not considered Jewish according to Halacha and because they are not affiliated with any other religion, these Israeli citizens are denied a basic right – the right to marry whomever they please.

Instead, these couples – one member of whom is Jewish and one is not – must travel abroad to tie the knot. Upon returning to Israel, their marriage is recognized by the state.

A partial solution to this situation was provided last November when the Knesset passed legislation that enables civil unions in cases where both the man and woman are not Jewish and have no other religious affiliation. But this legislation does not help in cases of intermarriage between a Jew and a non-Jew.

Still, while the Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center, the Masorti Movement, New Family, Na’amat, WIZO, Kolech, Hiddush and other organization that petitioned the High Court are right that the present marriage laws violate democratic principles of equality, there is, nevertheless, a reason why the civil marriage option has been denied Israelis for the first 63 years of the Jewish state’s existence.

Though according to recent surveys of Jewish Israeli opinion, this is no longer the case, there was once a strong consensus that Israel, as the sovereign nation of the Jewish people, has an obligation to fight intermarriage through legislation that encourages Jews to marry other Jews. Intermarriage and assimilation plague Jews of the Diaspora. The State of Israel should reflect through its laws the desire of the Jewish people to maintain continuity. Admittedly, preventing Jews from marrying non-Jews through legislation or a lack thereof will not stop intermarriage. Love will overcome any obstacle. But the fact that the State of Israel does not officially condone intermarriage has some declarative value.

It appears, however, that we are swiftly approaching a crossroads. A growing number of Israelis believe that more separation needs to be made between Synagogue and State. In part, this is due to the alienating effect for many Israelis of the haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over religious services – including marriage and divorce.

The demand for civil marriages would undoubtedly be less insistent today if religious services had been “privatized” years ago to allow various streams of Orthodoxy – modern and ultra-Orthodox – and recognized non-Orthodox streams of Judaism that accept central Jewish concepts – such as matrilineal descent – to compete in an atmosphere of “free market Judaism.”

The Reform and Masorti movements in Israel would probably never have joined in petitioning the High Court to institute civil marriages if they had been allowed to perform their own marriages.

If civil marriage is instituted in Israel, however, it must not be done via High Court edict, but rather only after an extensive public discourse, perhaps even a referendum, is conducted and our lawmakers are given ample time to discuss the matter. Individual liberty must be carefully weighed against the importance of maintaining the Jewishness of the State of Israel.

No matter what the final outcome, it is essential that all Israelis, whether for or against civil marriage, be satisfied that the decision-making process was thorough and fair and took into consideration the many dimensions of an issue that continues to arouse strong emotions on all sides of the debate.

Judaism's call for peace

Ideally, religion should and can be a force for peace. But this Yom Kippur – the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, a day devoted entirely to self-improvement and the striving for tikkun olam – was marred by sectarian violence.

More than 100 graves were vandalized in the Muslim cemetery of al-Kazakhana and at a nearby Christian cemetery in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa. Some of the graves were spray-painted with graffiti such as “Death to all Arabs,” while others were smashed. Jaffa residents said the vandalism took place Friday evening as the Yom Kippur holiday was beginning, though police suggested it might have taken place a day or two prior. In the ensuing protests staged by the Muslim and Christian residents of Jaffa, who were joined by dozens of sympathetic Jews, a Molotov cocktail was hurled at the roof of the Rabbi Meir Ba’al Ha’nes synagogue in Jaffa, causing damage but, thankfully, no injuries. On Wednesday, Jewish worshipers were shocked to discover that a holy site in Nablus believed to be the burial site of the biblical Joseph had been desecrated by swastikas and graffiti.



THIS LATEST flurry of violence focusing specifically on holy sites was sparked by last week’s despicable arson attack on a mosque in Tuba Zanghariya.

The desecration in Tuba Zanghariya was compounded by the fact that the Beduin village has a long history of cooperation and peaceful coexistence with Israel. In 1946, men from the al-Heib tribe in Tuba fought side by side with the Palmah to help secure Israeli independence. The village named its sports hall after Yitzhak Rabin. In October 2000, when Arab riots broke out in the Galilee, village leaders decided that Tuba Zanghariya’s residents would not take part. Today, there is a branch of the Acharay [After Me] Movement in the town, where one of the locals, a veteran of the Givati Infantry Brigade, works to increase the Beduin youths’ motivation to serve in combat units.

Religious extremism, often characterized by an unnerving, unshakable and irrational belief in the justness of the cause, coupled with a willingness to take action to do God’s will, distorts the perception of the devout. The recent spate of attacks on religious sites – Muslim, Jewish and Christian – is a case in point. All threaten to upset the delicate web of coexistence in such a potentially volatile region.

Admirably, numerous religious leaders have spoken out strongly against the violence, arguing rightly that it is a gross misrepresentation of the principles of religious faith.

Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger personally visited Tuba Zanghariya to denounce the attack as did neighboring Rosh Pina’s Rabbi Avraham Davidowitz, who is also head of the local pre-military yeshiva. Even Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed, who aroused controversy for calling on Jews not to rent or sell apartments to non-Jews, nevertheless denounced the act, though he questioned whether Jews had carried it out. In an editorial, the haredi daily Yated Ne’eman condemned the arsonists, though unfortunately the editorial board was carried away with religious fervor, arguing that Halacha dictated the arsonists could be killed to prevent them from endangering others.

The local Reform and Masorti (Conservative) movements issued statements. And in an initiative organized by the New Israel Fund, more than a thousand rabbis from around the world representing all streams of Judaism signed a declaration denouncing the burning of the mosque in Tuba Zanghariya.

The across-the-board denunciation by Jewish religious leaders from all streams of the violent attack on a Muslim site is ample evidence that Judaism, while sometimes distorted and misrepresented, does indeed carry a strong message of peace.

Protecting Trajtenberg from populism

It’s only natural that politicians will gauge their parliamentary activities in accordance with the way they understand the electoral winds to be blowing.

But, sometimes kowtowing to perceived public opinion is so crude that it crosses the line that separates political savvy from cheap, irresponsible populism.

A case in point was the fiasco that took place in the cabinet Monday over the vote on the Trajtenberg Committee recommendations.

This paper, along with many leading economists, including Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, has come out strongly in favor of the Trajtenberg recommendations.

Real solutions are provided for a host of ills afflicting our economy – from income-tax reforms benefiting the cash-strapped middle-class; to longer school days and state funding of pre-schools that will enable mothers to leave the house and work; to higher corporate taxes and National Insurance payments provided by employers; to wide-ranging reforms in the construction and housing market; to a lowering of tariffs and more stringent anti-trust laws that will facilitate more competitive markets leading to lower consumer prices.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, riding the groundswell of grassroots support for socioeconomic change, was rightly eager to hold a vote in favor of the Trajtenberg recommendations in the cabinet as quickly as possible.

Final passage of the recommendations in the Knesset is a long and grueling process. Initially, a first reading is voted on in the plenum. Next, the relevant Knesset committees take apart the recommendations and discuss them individually. Finally, the Knesset votes again in a second and third reading.

The quicker the Trajtenberg recommendations can be passed in the cabinet, the better. Unfortunately, narrow political interests and pointless wrangling forced Netanyahu to delay the cabinet vote, further pushing off much-needed economic reforms.

Apparently concerned by Aryeh Deri’s imminent return to politics, Shas leader Eli Yishai attempted to turn the cabinet vote into an opportunity to present his party as the champion of the poor.

“Our opposition is a matter of principle,” announced Yishai. “The weakest sectors have been left behind.... We will continue to oppose this report until its flaws are fixed.”

By rejecting the Trajtenberg recommendations, Yishai no doubt sensed he would be appealing to the tens of thousands of disgruntled Israelis who are understandably fed up with such socioeconomic ills as the widening gap between the rich and the poor – one of the biggest in the Western world – and the exorbitant cost of basics, such as housing and food.



But delaying the passage of the Trajtenberg recommendations only exacerbates the situation. And with all due respect to Shas and its claim to be the defender of the poor, this summer's socioeconomic protests were first and foremost a revolt of the middle class against their inability, despite working and hard and earning relative well, to make ends meet.
In addition to Shas's Yishai, several Likud rebels also jumped on the populist bandwagon such as Netanyahu's perennial rival Vice Premier and Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom and Welfare and Social Services Minister Moshe Kahlon. Meanwhile, Israel Beiteinu's ministers seemed motivated, at least in part, by a desire to show Netanyahu, and Israel Beiteinu's constituents that they were not as Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov put it "pawns" in the hands of Netanyahu. And Defense Minister Ehud Barak is battling against the cuts proposed by the Trajtenberg Committee in the security budget.
None of the ministers offered criticism with real substance that justified a delay in passing the Trajtenberg recommendations. Like the leaders of this summer's socioeconomic protests such as Dafni Leef, who is credited with beginning the tent camp protests, and National Student Association Chairman Itizk Shmuli, the ministers who voiced their unschooled opposition to Trajtenberg seemed to be less concerned with articulating realistic economic reforms and more interested in tapping into the populist energies of an Israeli society yearning for a fairer more efficient socioeconomic climate.
Sadly, the successful passage of the Trajtenberg recommendations, which would go a long way towards righting many of the wrongs in our economy, can no longer be taken for granted if the sort of petty bickering that went on in the cabinet Monday is indicative of future discussions in the cabinet and in the Knesset. In their zeal to appeal to what they believe to be popular opinion our lawmakers are performing a real disservice to the self same public they claim to represent.

Sidestepping Gilo

Washington’s response to plans to advance the building of 1,100 housing units in the Jewish east Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo was relatively subdued. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Gilo project “counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties.”

Statements coming from Berlin were worded more sternly.

Following a phone call between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Chancellor Angela Merkel about the Gilo project, the German Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Merkel told Netanyahu that she “lacked any comprehension for the approval of new construction plans for Gilo near Jerusalem just days after the Quartet declaration [calling for a new peace plan] had been passed.”

No matter the precise wording of the responses, it is abundantly clear that America, Israel’s most important international ally, and Germany, a country that came out early and strongly against Palestinian efforts to receive UN recognition for a Palestinian state along the 1949 armistice lines – which include Gilo on the Palestinian side – were both upset by the timing of the Gilo project announcement.

It is equally clear that unlike the surprise surrounding the March 2010 Ramat Shlomo debacle that coincided with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel to jump-start direct talks, Netanyahu and the Americans were both forewarned that Interior Ministry’s District Planning Committee would be approving the Gilo project. And Netanyahu was also aware that it would arouse international rancor.

In a Rosh Hashana-eve interview with The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon, the prime minister was specifically asked about the claim that it was bad timing to announce Gilo now. Netanyahu rejected this.

“We build in Jewish neighborhoods, the Arabs build in Arab neighborhoods,” he replied. “That is the way the life of this city goes on and develops for its Jewish and non- Jewish residents alike.”

Still, perhaps Netanyahu should have played his hand differently.

Of course Israel has every right to build in Gilo. But perhaps he should have quietly postponed approval of the Gilo project.

After the Ramat Shlomo crisis, Netanyahu put in place oversight procedures allowing him to do precisely this. If he had postponed Gilo, claiming technical difficulties or some other non-political explanation, the Palestinians would have had no excuse for avoiding direct talks as recommended by the Quartet.

Delaying Gilo would have also made it easier for the US and Germany and other European countries to back Israel’s demand to resume talks without any preconditions and would have sent out a message that we are appreciative for their support in the UN against the Palestinian bid for statehood.

And even if Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has authority over construction planning, had publicly objected, claiming that Netanyahu was bowing to international pressure, this would have been good for Netanyahu diplomatically.

He would have come out looking like a prime minister pursuing peace despite opposition from inside his own government coalition.

True, there is no good time to build in Gilo.

International opinion is opposed to any Jewish construction beyond the Green Line. No distinctions are made between outlying settlements in Judea and Samaria and Gilo, a neighborhood 10 minutes away from downtown Jerusalem that will remain part of Israel in a final-status agreement according to every peace plan put forward in the past 18 years, including the 2000 Clinton parameters and the Geneva Initiative.



Even the Palestinians have privately accepted the idea that Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem will remain part of Israel, according to about 1,600 documents revealing the content of negotiations that went on in 2008 between high-ranking Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials leaked to Al Jazeera in January, known as “PaliLeaks.”

Meanwhile, Israel faces a major housing shortage. Even a short delay in construction further widens the gap between inadequate supply and skyrocketing demand.

Nevertheless, from a tactical perspective, it would have been wiser to temporarily delay the Gilo project.

Doing so would have shifted international pressure and attention from Jerusalem to Ramallah and demonstrated that Palestinian intransigence – not the apartment buildings in Gilo – is the real obstacle to peace.

Consumer power

The Great Israeli Cottage Cheese Uprising has taken a new and promising turn. Itzik Elrov, the haredi man from Bnei Brak who started it all back in June, could not have imagined that his lone Facebook call, spurred by shock at the jacked-up price of cottage cheese at his local grocery store, would set in motion a revolution in the local dairy market.

The latest chapter in a saga demonstrating the tremendous power that can be wielded by engaged and united consumers is the resignation of Zehavit Cohen, head of the dairy giant Tnuva. The resignation, pending an investigation by the Israel Antitrust Authority into allegations that Tnuva might have hidden documents revealing that it abused its monopoly status to gouge prices, was accompanied by an announcement by Tnuva, which controls well over half of the NIS 8.6 billion dairy market, on a 15 percent price cut starting Tuesday. White cheeses, hard yellow cheeses and pudding are some of the products that will become more affordable.

But while it is encouraging to know that the grassroots protest started by Elrov and picked up by several university student unions in recent months succeeded in getting the attention of big businesses, the impact made by Elrov et alia might be even more farreaching, resulting in no less than a complete revamping of the entire dairy market.

It has been an open secret for some time that the prices of dairy products here are disproportionately high. But it took the Great Israeli Cottage Cheese Uprising to push this fact to the forefront of public consciousness.

For instance, in July, just weeks after the uprising began, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made headlines when he expressed astonishment during a visit to Romania that Tnuva cottage cheese sold for NIS 2 less in Bucharest than it did in Beersheba.

Reports released by the Treasury and by the Knesset research department over the summer provided data on the 45% hike in cottage cheese prices between 2006, when price controls were removed, and January 2011, when a 250-gram container cost more than NIS 7. In June, Elrov’s grocery store charged NIS 8. In contrast, the wholesale price of milk increased by less than 10% during the same period.

These reports, and a thorough study published in July by Keren Harel-Harari of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, listed the reasons for the price distortions in our dairy market. Tnuva, Tara and Strauss – the three largest dairies – as well as other producers of agricultural products – were said to be exempt from the sorts of anti-trust laws that applied to most sectors of the economy. Also, various tariffs and obstacles to imports – such as a 150% to 200% tax on imported milk powder and butter – protected the local dairy and agricultural market from international competition.

But perhaps most disturbing was the revelation that in March this year, the Netanyahu government – usually so strongly pro-free market – pushed through the Law for the Planning of the Dairy Market. In the 50-0 vote, the Knesset ratified legislation reminiscent of now-defunct centrally planned economies. Instead of allowing free market forces to sort out supply and demand in the market, a special “quota committee” would determine annual dairy output.



Though the law gives the industry, trade and labor minister the authority to open up the dairy market to international competition, Shalom Simhon, the present minister who is seen as representing the interests of moshavim, many of which are big producers of milk, has said publicly that doing so would be ineffective and would take too long.

It appears, however, that the forces set in motion by Elrov’s Great Israeli Cottage Cheese Uprising are unstoppable. The same grassroots pressure that brought about Cohen’s resignation and Tnuva’s hasty announcement of a price cut will inevitably lead to more substantial and desperately needed changes in the dairy market. And it all began with one disgruntled consumer who refused to be taken advantage of any longer.