Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman spoke to reporters Wednesday and suggested that Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz stop pushing for further restrictions that would harm Israel's economy.
"The coefficient of infection is going down, so we need to stop talking about the new restrictions and let the economy work," Liberman said, expressing opposition to the business owners' demand for compensation for the green pass restrictions: "Go to Superland and restaurants - everything is full."
Liberman also addressed the crisis in public hospitals, explaining that "the Finance Ministry cannot transfer funds directly to the hospitals but to the Health Ministry. Then begins a story of tests of who is eligible - we do not just transfer money when it comes to hundreds of millions [of shekels]. Today the CEO and Chief of Staff [of the Finance Ministry] were with the Health Minister in order to summarize the issue and transfer funds immediately in the form of an advance payment. I hope that the way will be found to transfer advances immediately to the public hospitals."
"We will not back down from the reform in agriculture but will insist on it," the finance minister said, "We will not leave agriculture non-competitive but we will demand that it reach the level of the startup nation and move forward."
"There are those who want to keep activists there and it is a pity that MKs from the coalition are working against the reform without reading it. If we do not reach an agreement - we will lower the tariffs on imports in any case even without an agreement. It will not be possible to return later to the things we offered them," Liberman added.