“Contributing to the poor on Passover is like giving a syringe with heroin to a drug addict,” writes Rogel Alper in Ha’aretz on Sunday. Alper argues that the government is robbing the national coffers, and so the heart strings of the working public are being strummed to fill the gap with donations. “Anyone who agrees to donate also agrees to be used and robbed, eternalizing a circle of shameless cynicism.”
“How much more money can the greedy crows take away from me?” cries Alper, who believes that his hard earned money which is grabbed by the government in the form of taxes should be sufficient to take care of the poor. The reason it isn’t, he says, has to do with budgetary priorities with which he disagrees: money that goes to the settlements and to yeshivas.
Alper argues that despite the fact that in 2016 Israel reported collecting about $2 billion more than anticipated in taxes, there are still poor people in Israel. Where did the money go?
Besides the fact that $2 billion can’t seriously be expected to solve Israel’s poverty issues, Alper’s “analysis” reads more like a preconceived notion than honest observation. He cites off-budget spending on settlements and Haredi yeshivas made by the current government so far in 2017, but his numbers don’t add up: $8.2 million off-budget given to the settlements, and $13.7 to yeshivas. That’s a lot less than $2 billion.
The fact is that governments abhor surpluses much the way nature abhors vacuum, and any extra funds that fall in the public coffers will be sucked away. Indeed, it’s also reasonable to expect that some or a lot of this money would go to opaque places and line up unintended pockets.
But why would Alper focus on the $21.9 million – his figures – that were spent off-budget on settlers and yeshivas, and ignore the $1,978,001,000 – again his figures – that went to all those other, opaque places?
Because, obviously, Alper hates Israeli settlements and yeshivas (especially yeshivas on the grounds of settlements), and when hate is having a party, reason takes a cab home.
“The ultra-Orthodox and the settlers must be weaned off the huge budgets they are receiving,” Alper reaches his expected conclusion, not through logic but through malevolence, and stresses that “it must be understood that giving to the poor on Passover is a political surrender.”
Happy Pesach.