MK Khenin: Full royalty rates must be applied to downstream products and not just to the mineral resources

Imposing a surtax of 42 percent on the excess profits of natural resource exploiters would boost the state’s coffers with NIS 500 million annually, an inter-ministerial committee concluded on Sunday. The Sheshinski 2 Committee, headed by Prof. Eytan Sheshinski, was tasked last year with examining the state’s royalty policies for the exploitation of natural resources…

Communist Party of Israel in support of Turkish workers

The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) sent last week a letter in support of Turkish workers to the Communist Party of Turkey and the Labour Party (EMEP): “The Communist Party of Israel expresses its deep anguish, concern and rage over the criminal massacre committed by SOMA Komur Isletmeleri A.S. and its best ally – the…

MK Dov Khenin during an environmental meeting at the Tel-Aviv's coast, May 12, 2014 (Photo: Zalul)

Israel’s environmentalists are up in arms

The Interior Ministry has decided to terminate their long-established representation in the country’s foremost planning commission forums. Petitions to the High Court of Justice against this are already in the pipeline. The environmental organizations contend that their absence would inevitably deny ordinary Israelis a voice on what might be constructed in their vicinity and that…

May Day 2014 in Tel-Aviv: Raise the minimum wage to 30 shekels an hour (Photo: Galit)

Worker exploitation: How the state supports businesses

More than 120 years have passed since May Day was first celebrated as the workers’ struggle day. Despite significant progress that has been made in the past century, such as the inclusion of workers’ rights into the public discourse and protests, and progressive labor law legislation, many employers continue to overwork and underpay their workers,…

Palestinians demonstrate in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian administrative prisoners, Nablus, West Bank, May 11, 2014 (Photo: Activestills)

Palestinian administrative detainees on hunger strike

On Thursday, 24 April 2014, Palestinian administrative detainees held by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) announced a hunger strike to protest the Israeli security establishment’s use of administrative detention. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, more than ninety administrative detainees went on hunger strike that day, with another six joining them a week later. On…

MK Dov Khenin during a protest meeting in front the Holyland Project in Jerusalem (Photo: The Association for the Defense of Nature)

MK Khenin on Olmert’s verdict: “We need to move in the opposite direction of Netanyahu’s neo-liberal reforms”

MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) reacted Tuesday afternoon to the sentencing of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was handed a six-year prison sentence Tuesday, and will apparently be the first Prime Minister to be incarcerated in Israeli history. “Olmert’s sentence joins the parade of shame bourgeois politicians into the walls of the prison and is…