MK Uri Maklev (United Torah Judaism) slammed Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) for an amendment to the maternity payments granted in Israel..
During a Knesset discussion on the National Insurance Institute Law, Maklev accused Liberman of "wanting to send thousands of people in wheelbarrows to the garbage dump, to gather food for their families."
"Just like this government tricks the public, so, too this law tricks the public," Maklev said. "On the face of it, this law provides maternity pay, but most of the law determines who the State will cease giving these payments to, after they have received them until now."
The new amendment would restrict maternity payments to certain individuals placed on unpaid leave by their employers.
Maklev also warned that "thousands of citizens up to age 45, who were fired from their jobs, will not have what to feed their children with. In one blow, the Finance Minister has come, with unparalleled cruelty, and sent tens of thousands of people to the garbage dump with a wheelbarrrow, to search there for food for their children. In one blow, he has ended the living stipends of pregnant women, of parents to children."
"The Finance Minister provides professional training, because in his opinion, it's extra. Unfortunately there is no effort to find a solution or a compromise. What about all the branches of the economy which haven't recovered yet? Just this morning two people in incoming tourism sat with me in the office and said they don't have where to go back to. What will be with all of the industries which are cutting back and not bringing people back [to work], and especially the special sectors? What will be with them?"