The News Behind The News
December 29, 1999
Shas Shocks the New York Times
By IASPS StaffMs. Sontag! Editors of the prestigious New York Times! This is the second time we have had to tell you that the Israeli system you are writing daily about works like this: (Permit me to spell it out in steps so you can memorize it for your next article.) [1] The bureaucrats run the economy. [2] The economy is based on unilateral transfers or free money (i.e., foreign aid, reparations, charitable contributions and the like). [3] The politicians get the money. [4] The politicians dole it out to friends and family as long as the bureaucrats administer the handouts.
Mr. Barak is about to get the biggest piece of money in Israeli history. Many, many billions. It comes from the "foreign policy" (yes, Ms. Sontag, the "peace process"--actually understood to be the "piece of the $ process") of Israel which is the means of getting the money in the first place. Shas is getting in line. Indeed, it has always been in the line, ever since the Rabin government. It, along with all the other players in the "system," are in the line. Ms. Sontag, Ms Sontag, Hello, hello, anyone there?!? Earth calling. Or, as we say here, boker tov, boker tov!?!
Money is peace, peace is money. That is all there is to know and that is all there is to know. Know it once and for all. Or, if you still don't get it, ask those bureaucrats, who feed you the "inside scoop," why they get 11% per year pay raises in a country suffering from economic stagnation. Look at the actual state budget just once during your tenure here and see how the country uses "unilateral transfers" (i.e., the free money) to subsidize everything else, especially the imports. By the way, the balance of payments deficit is remarkably akin to the free money Israel receives every year, about $8 billion/year, not the $3 billion/year bantered about as "foreign aid." Dear Ms. Sontag, learn and grow.
In this very NBN, posted the day before the "Shas deal," now updated to make the point again so that you won't embarrass yourself and the Times once again, that anyone who knows anything about Israeli politics knows that the Shas announcement to quit the ruling coalition created neither a shake nor even a tremor. To remind you, you wrote, "The announcement shook the country, because the party's departure would throw the governing coalition into chaos just as it moved into a critical period, facing key budgetary and peacemaking deadlines."
Before the Shas deal was announced this morning, we had already published our NBN informing you that, "Indeed, budget approval time in Israel is all about extortionist demands from every sector in society, except the hard working middle- to upper-class, who seldom have a say in anything.
"Indeed, those who scream the loudest tend to be the strongest elements in the ruling coalition government of the day. The leftists in the government scream for more money for the environment, education (translated: bureaucratic salaries), culture and the arts (translated: the dying state-subsidized theatre), etc. Organized labor screams for higher salaries, a higher minimum wage, and mandatory collective bargaining in every walk of life. Big business, very much a part of government in Israel, screams for more cartels, lower interest rates, devaluations, and more government aid for research and development, etc. The right-wing "Zionists" scream for more government built homes in Judea and Samaria. The list goes on and on."
Indeed Ms. Sontag, did you catch today's New York Times Likud editorialist, Mr Sharon? He has a species of your own blind spot when he asked why Israel should reward Syria. He of course knows what the system is. But he's in line, too, along with all of the boards of directors of companies he sits on in Israel, along with the other Likud businessmen, the Histadrut businessmen, and the former senior ministry of finance bureaucrats who "retire" to big business to draw huge salaries on condition that their connections allow them to milk the system dry. Oh, Ms. Sontag, it is endless. How did you miss it? How did you come to believe it "shook" the country. We Israelis know the system far too well, although we'll never admit it to the "outsiders." Ms. Sontag. Ms Sontag. Wake up!.
Let me make the point again, lest you dozed off. Before the Shas deal was announced, we wrote in this very NBN (in response to your obviously flawed news analysis that, "Shas has been an unstable partner in Mr. Barak's broad-based coalition"): "There is absolutely nothing shocking about Shas' threat to leave the coalition. Everyone knows that without more state bailout money, Shas would be bankrupt. Everyone knew at the outset of Shas' entry into the government that the quid pro quo of Shas' support of the peace process was indeed a bailout package. Shocking? Hardly Ms. Sontag. . . .The Shas party holds 17 seats in the Knesset, the third-largest. The conditions for its participation in the government have never been unstable, nor has its conduct been so. Shas, as was the case in the Rabin government, has always been willing to vote for the peace process in exchange for a piece of the money-pie dolled out to all the members and friends of the government. What is unstable or marketplace about that?"
When you, Ms. Sontag, were predicting shocks and threats to the stability of the coalition, this NBN calmly explained to you that, "There has been no last minute haggling here. Barak knows full well he will pay off Shas. The country knows full well Barak will pay off Shas. Wake up Ms. Sontag. The question you must ask is, and this is the second time you have heard this from us, "Where is the money?" That is the question you need to ask, not just about Shas or One Israel, or Agudas Yisrael, or Likud, or the National Religious Party, but about the peace process itself. The peace process is meant to buy peace not with the Arabs, but with those in the Israeli system."
Ms. Sontag, you and the Times were sleeping. Those of your readers who didn't get a chance to read this NBN yesterday might have been shocked along with you. Those who had the good sense to visit this site, as thousands do, knew the real story.