“Between Realization and Dehydration” – a comprehensive report published by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) – presents the processes and methods by which successive Israeli governments have cut back social services over the past three decades. Housing, education, heath, employment, welfare and more – all these were drained as Israel turned itself into a neo-liberal capitalist country where many people find it difficult to exercise their right to a dignified life and an adequate standard of living.
These were not accidental, but rather the consequences of years of active policies, including: budget cuts in government ministries, in a manner that severely damaged the quality of social services (such as housing, education, employment, and welfare), massive privatization, without public debate or adequate governmental monitoring (such as in the welfare system, the drug rehabilitation system, student health services, higher education, and more), failure to implement laws and court rulings (such as the enforcement of workers’ rights, the obligation to provide public education, and the rights of the disabled to employment and accessibility), tax policies that reduced state revenues, prevented adequate allocation of budgets for social services, and even widened social disparities by reducing progressive, direct taxes and increasing regressive, indirect taxes and crushing the opposition by delegitimizing labor unions and workers’ struggles, blaming the poor for their condition, allocating divisive benefits, and more.
The report includes testimonials from former high-ranking officials in the civil service, who describe from their experience how the “draining” process was used to diminish social services in different government bodies. The interviewees come from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Education, National Insurance Institute, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Employment Services.
According to Attorney Tali Nir, Director of ACRI’s Social and Economic Rights Department and author of the report: “The report attempts to unravel the processes that led hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens to take to the streets and demand social justice. Now that many people understand that the problem lies not with them, but rather that it is part of a long-standing and systematic government policy, the time has come to understand how this policy was implemented. The reduction of social services violated the rights of Israeli residents to education, health, housing, employment, and welfare, and led to a dramatic widening of social gaps. Although the report paints a grim picture, there is also a ray of light: social struggles that succeeded, such as the struggle for disability rights, the campaign against the ‘Wisconsin Plan,’ the campaign on the profits of natural gas companies, and others.”
To download an English summary of the report, click here.
To download the full report in Hebrew, click here
