Urgent Priorities
Despite ongoing and difficult expenditures on security issues Israel's economy is in fairly good shape; in fact, it's been described as 'booming'. Which, in and of itself, is very reassuring for a country beset by so many other kinds of problems. Israel has a substantial middle class and a nice smattering of wealthy people, as well as a social underclass of needy groups reliant on government agencies for their wherewithal.
Despite which, Israel does not appear to be delivering on her social aid obligations to her people. Private charities run soup kitchens to feed the deprived, poverty-stricken Israelis whose plight seems to have passed the notice of the government. Evacuation and housing and medical care and summer camps for traumatized children in the border areas during the Israel-Hezbollah war of last summer had to be funded by private charity.
Underprivileged children are given the opportunity to attend summer camps through the fund-raising auspices of private charity. Former Gazan settlers, forcibly removed from their erstwhile homes, remain unsettled in greater Israel, still mouldering in temporary urban encampments. Why? Where are priorities?
Yes, this is an embattled nation, constantly under outside attack, ever vigilant. But much is owed to the vulnerable in its society, and too little has been brought forward for far too long by the government in a serious effort to address these needs, and the government's shortcomings. Elderly Israelis who cannot afford motorized wheelchairs will not be given them through government social agencies if they are deemed to be 'too old'.
For shame. where is the national consensus and will to bring a solution to this national shame? And now the plight of Holocaust survivors, elderly and often impecunious Israelis, has been brought to the fore - with a new government initiative to offer them the grand sum of $20 per month in assistance. What exactly is this survival pittance likely to assure these people in their penurious existence?
This is Israel of which we speak, the nation whose sole purpose was to provide a haven, a refuge for world Jewry, for no other country offered that in their time of need. This is the very country whose existence owes itself to the to the horrors of the Holocaust and the overwhelming sense of international shame and compassion that resulted on its revelation. A world-shattering event whose memory the country still evokes for political gain.
Yet here is this cavalier neglect of her most vulnerable citizens, poverty-stricken Holocaust survivors. What values are these? Israel should cringe in shame at this national disgrace. This should be an issue that unites Israelis, that should compel them to move toward a self-extracting and exacting level of public will and conscience, to demand accountability on behalf of the social needs of survivors, of their government.
Yes, there is gathering support for the elderly survivors, to face the opposition of government recalcitrance in observation of the stark need. There should be a groundswell of public opinion to completely swamp the government in public indignation at this arbitrarily insulting offer of inadequate assistance. And Ehud Olmert, who indignantly bridled at aspersions cast upon him, citing that his own parents fled the Nazis is beyond contempt.
What gall. It's heartening that the media and student groups and Knesset members of various political stripes are supporting the protest. The Holocaust Survivors Welfare Fund is right, that the Prime Minister and his cohorts have an obligation to meet with survivor groups for direct negotiations in the matter. If there has to be a differentiation between survivors of death camps and those fortunate enough to have fled the Nazis, so be it. There should also be a recognition that survivors with wherewithal be differentiated from those without.
A new, reasonably acceptable offer that upholds the dignity of needy survivors and the government itself cannot be brought to the table soon enough. In the interim, the government has done itself limitless damage, irrespective of the fact that this happens to be the first government that has made any kind of offer of assistance. What this says about the nation's priorities is unfortunate.
Too little, too late.
Despite which, Israel does not appear to be delivering on her social aid obligations to her people. Private charities run soup kitchens to feed the deprived, poverty-stricken Israelis whose plight seems to have passed the notice of the government. Evacuation and housing and medical care and summer camps for traumatized children in the border areas during the Israel-Hezbollah war of last summer had to be funded by private charity.
Underprivileged children are given the opportunity to attend summer camps through the fund-raising auspices of private charity. Former Gazan settlers, forcibly removed from their erstwhile homes, remain unsettled in greater Israel, still mouldering in temporary urban encampments. Why? Where are priorities?
Yes, this is an embattled nation, constantly under outside attack, ever vigilant. But much is owed to the vulnerable in its society, and too little has been brought forward for far too long by the government in a serious effort to address these needs, and the government's shortcomings. Elderly Israelis who cannot afford motorized wheelchairs will not be given them through government social agencies if they are deemed to be 'too old'.
For shame. where is the national consensus and will to bring a solution to this national shame? And now the plight of Holocaust survivors, elderly and often impecunious Israelis, has been brought to the fore - with a new government initiative to offer them the grand sum of $20 per month in assistance. What exactly is this survival pittance likely to assure these people in their penurious existence?
This is Israel of which we speak, the nation whose sole purpose was to provide a haven, a refuge for world Jewry, for no other country offered that in their time of need. This is the very country whose existence owes itself to the to the horrors of the Holocaust and the overwhelming sense of international shame and compassion that resulted on its revelation. A world-shattering event whose memory the country still evokes for political gain.
Yet here is this cavalier neglect of her most vulnerable citizens, poverty-stricken Holocaust survivors. What values are these? Israel should cringe in shame at this national disgrace. This should be an issue that unites Israelis, that should compel them to move toward a self-extracting and exacting level of public will and conscience, to demand accountability on behalf of the social needs of survivors, of their government.
Yes, there is gathering support for the elderly survivors, to face the opposition of government recalcitrance in observation of the stark need. There should be a groundswell of public opinion to completely swamp the government in public indignation at this arbitrarily insulting offer of inadequate assistance. And Ehud Olmert, who indignantly bridled at aspersions cast upon him, citing that his own parents fled the Nazis is beyond contempt.
What gall. It's heartening that the media and student groups and Knesset members of various political stripes are supporting the protest. The Holocaust Survivors Welfare Fund is right, that the Prime Minister and his cohorts have an obligation to meet with survivor groups for direct negotiations in the matter. If there has to be a differentiation between survivors of death camps and those fortunate enough to have fled the Nazis, so be it. There should also be a recognition that survivors with wherewithal be differentiated from those without.
A new, reasonably acceptable offer that upholds the dignity of needy survivors and the government itself cannot be brought to the table soon enough. In the interim, the government has done itself limitless damage, irrespective of the fact that this happens to be the first government that has made any kind of offer of assistance. What this says about the nation's priorities is unfortunate.
Too little, too late.
Labels: Inconvenient Politics
posted by Pieface | 4:50 PM
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