As the potential members in Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition begin fighting over ministerial appointments, one ministry, the Welfare ministry, is seemingly unwanted by anyone.
The high-profile and important Defense Ministry, Finance Ministry and Foreign Ministry are the most desirable, as always. The ministries of Education, Justice and Public Security are in the “second tier” of desirability. The largest hareidi-religious party, Shas, wants the Interior Ministry, as well as the Housing and Religions portfolios.
Shas, which was represented at negotiations with Likud on Wednesday by Attorney David Glass and Prof. Yochanan Shtassman, reportedly also wants a Deputy Minister for Hareidi Education in the Ministry of Education.
United Torah Judaism was represented by all five of its faction members. The faction reportedly wants to chair the Knesset’s Finance Committee, and will ask for deputy ministers in the Housing and Education ministries, as well as control of the Israel Land Administration.
The Ichud Leumi reportedly wants its head to be Deputy Defense Minister or, barring that, Minister of Housing.
Welfare: the ugly duckling
One ministry is reportedly not sought after by anyone: the Ministry of Welfare. According to the Chairman of the Social Workers’ Union, Itzik Perry, the social issues are not perceived as ones that will bolster politicians’ reputations. Speaking to Yediot Acharonot, Perry warned that, should a hareidi-religious party receive the ministry, the result would be that funds would flow to the hareidi public. This he sees as a bad thing.
“Yeshivas, for instance, are defined as boarding schools and therefore receive their funding from the Welfare ministry. If the Welfare Minister is hareidi, he will elect to send money there and not to programs geared for the general public.”
Perry is not alone in his concern that the ministry will end up in the wrong hands. The Director of the Association for Civil rights in Israel, a group funded by the New Israel Fund, which fights for the rights of Arabs and homosexuals, devoted an opinion piece in Ma’ariv-NRG to the subject of the Welfare Ministry.
Elad sees the Welfare Minister as a possible bulwark against fascism. “Unless there is a meaningful change in the welfare policy and its funding, we are facing bad tidings not just for the unemployed and weakened populations. This could be very bad news for democracy in Israel,” he contends. “And we have already learned that a financial crisis, a rupturing of social solidarity and the widening of gaps are fertile ground for the neglect of democratic values and the sprouting of fascism.”