MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) said on Monday that if the committee to fight poverty would not operate within a budgetary framework, its deliberations would be in vain. He made these remarks during a special meeting of the Finance Committee intended to discuss the lack of a budget for the implementation of the recommendations of the Welfare and Social Services Ministry’s Fight against Poverty Committee, chaired by Eli Alalouf. However, representatives from the Treasury did not attend the meeting, and so the debate on the budgetary issue was postponed.

Protest for social justice in Tel-Aviv, July 2012 (Photo: Sasha Kimel)

As discussion continued, the committee addressed the heart of the matter – how the Committee to Fight Poverty intends to eradicate poverty. MK Khenin said that the lack of a budget forces the committee to work “modestly” without really tackling the issues it would like to address. “The committee is on a predetermined path,” Khenin said, “in which the most important question eludes it: national priorities, and how to really eradicate poverty? We need to expand public housing. The root cause of poverty is what is happening in the labor market. Real wages in Israel are eroding and therefore the cost of living is unbearable.”