The cabinet unanimously approved on Wednesday, December 30, a NIS 15 billion ($3.84 billion) five-year plan to fund the development of the infrastructure and services provided to the Arab-Palestinian national minority in Israel, in an effort to bring these up to par with the those funded for the Jewish population. Leader of the Joint List, MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash), welcomed the authorization of the plan, but warned that there is still much that needs to be done for the Arab community in Israel. “The plan that was approved today is the result of a public campaign conducted over many years [and] is still far from complete,” he said. “We need to follow up with implementation of the plan. Even though we have a long history of past disappointments, and harbor no illusions about the government’s discriminatory policies, we hope to see the program put fully into effect.”
MK Odeh in front of the Ministry of Finance in Jerusalem, last week (Photo: Al Ittihad)
Following the cabinet decision, Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen (Hadash), told the Jerusalem Post that the main problem with the agreement is that it does not specify the exact budget for each of its provisions. In addition, he said, “the approved plan falls far short of our original proposal which exceeded NIS 30 billion (about $7.7 billion), and consequently will not result in substantial changes in the daily, real life conditions of Arab citizens.” Jabareen added “I am afraid that the government is merely placating the international community, in response to criticism like that from the OECD. We will continue our popular, legal and parliamentary struggle for achieving true equality for our community.”
After the vote, far-fight opposition leader MK Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) released a statement slamming Netanyahu’s government for boosting the Arab share of the budget. “The next time, the Arabs will ‘flock to the polls’ funded by Netanyahu,” he said, making reference to the prime minister’s racist comments towards the closing of the polls at the end of the last election day (March 17, 2015), warning Jewish Israelis that Arabs were arriving at voting stations “in droves” in order to encourage Likud supporters to get out and vote.
