Israel’s right wing has found a new way to torture Gazans

Palestinian workers enter Israel through Erez crossing, in September 2023

Ehud Ein-Gil writes in Haaretz on 2 Jun 2024:

In shallow waters on the fringes of the Israeli right, a nauseating competition has been taking place in recent weeks. After prominent figures already exhausted almost all methods of evil against the residents of Gaza, someone there searched and found a victim into whom they could rub salt into the wound: Gaza workers who were seriously injured on the job in Israel more than 30 years ago whom the National Insurance Institute recognizes as “disabled workers” with at least 20 percent disability and who are therefore eligible – heaven forbid – to a disability pension.

Someone contacted the labor minister and wanted to know whether, since October 7, National Insurance continues to transfer pensions to any Gazans, and if so, how many and how much. The minister’s answer “shocked” her.

On May 8, the Israel Hayom daily reported a sensational exposé: “Even after the beginning of the war, National Insurance is paying 7.3 million shekels a year to Gaza residents, Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur confirmed in response to an inquiry by MK Yulia Malinovsky of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. According to a list provided, 183 Gazans receive disability pension totaling 360,000 shekels a year. 64 people – widows and orphans of men killed in work accidents – receive 175,000 shekels a year, and 18 people receive a ‘special pension.’

We will return to these figures, but it is worthwhile to first stop on how things unfolded after the announcement. Like flies drawn to dung, members of Israeli Right-wing NGO “Im Tirtzu” called on the public to send a “structured message” – i.e. pre-written – about the disclosure to the defense minister and labor minister, “Just press and send. Two seconds of effort and together we will stop the National Insurance payments to Gaza residents.”

The Yisrael Beiteinu website was proud of the achievement, and allowed MK Malinovsky to criticize the government from the right, to wit, “It should have shut the faucet to Gaza and stopped payments to Gaza once and for all. But no staff work was done and there is no systematic thought of any kind. Only because of my inquiry did they discover that we are paying 7.4 million shekels a year to Gaza.”

Her next step was to ask the Knesset Speaker to schedule an urgent debate by the Labor and Welfare Committee. Her request’s opening and explanatory remarks state, “Following my inquiry to the labor minister in the matter of examining the various pensions that National Insurance pays to Gaza residents, I was shocked to discover absurd figures.” She goes on to say, “Israel’s citizens deserve to know the truth, how the government is easily transferring astronomical sums from your pockets to Gaza residents.”

The spreading stench soon attracted more flies. MKs Simon Moshiashvili of Shas and Yitzak Kreuzer of Otzma Yehudit saved themselves the trouble, copy-pasted Malinovsky’s text and sent it, each separately under his own signature, to the Knesset Speaker: “Following my inquiry to the labor minister… I was shocked to discover absurd figures.” In this way they inserted themselves into the inquiry and the shock.

MK Moshe Solomon of Religious Zionism was more modest and cautious, deleting the first sentence of Malinovsky’s text to open his request with “According to the figures listed in the letter of the labor minister…” after which he pasted the rest of Malinovsky’s text, including the numbers, and her conclusion of “astronomical amounts” transferred to Gaza.

MK Efrat Reytan Marom (the Labor Party chair, who chaired the previous Knesset’s Labor and Welfare Committee) joined this gang of thieves with a flap of her wings, and in order to differentiate herself, she submitted her own wording to the request, without her colleagues’ harsh words. “Following the inquiry to the labor minister,” she wrote (without of course mentioning who inquired) “numbers came up that raise the need to examine the subject.” Her request does not mention “astronomical amounts,” but cites the same numbers.

Thus, in all the versions, the numbers provided by the labor minister are as follows: 183 Gazans receive a disability pension totaling 360,000 shekels a year. 64 people – widows and orphans of men killed in work accidents – receive 175,000 shekels a year, and 18 people receive a “special  pension” of 75,000 shekels a year. Simple addition gives a number: 265 unfortunate Gazans receive 610,000 shekels a year, which is an average of 2,300 shekels per person per year. These are astronomical amounts?

But immediately following the figures, the statement appearing in all the versions say that the same Gazans receive 7.3 million shekels a year from Israel. How does the amount jump from 610,000 to 7.3 million? How is it that all the writers of the requests and their aides, and the newspapers that published them and the rest of the professional inciters who rushed to cut from 265 disabled people, widows and orphans the meagre pension to which they are honestly entitled to, in blood and suffering – not one of them noticed that the amount was inflated twelve-fold from one sentence to the next?

And to conclude, the gang of thieves shouldn’t worry. The money doesn’t come “from the pockets of Israeli citizens,” per her allegation. 100,000 Palestinians worked in Israel until eight months ago, and at least three million shekels a month was deducted from their salaries for National Insurance, which is 36 million shekels a year.

This article is reproduced in its entirety