BICOM

Israel’s State Comptroller Joseph Shapira confirmed yesterday that there will be no delay in publishing a report on Israel’s housing sector, making it available before next month’s general election. The report is expected to sharply criticise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successive administrations on an issue of significant importance to the electorate.

Netanyahu’s Likud Party is thought to have pushed for the report to be delayed until after the 17 March election. Likud Transport Minister Yisrael Katz told Israel Radio that making the report public prior to polling day means that “the debate will be mostly political and not on the topic. And it is a shame, because this report surely has many things from which conclusions can be drawn.”

However, Shapira said that, “The publication date was set a while ago” and that it was the date of elections, not the report which had been altered. He added, “The report on the housing crisis deals with an important subject that has been on the public agenda for a long time.” Indeed, it was a major issue during the 2011 social protests with the average cost of housing thought to have skyrocketed more than 70 per cent over the last decade.

Several opposition parties are campaigning hard on social issues, including housing. Following yesterday’s announcement, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog commented that the housing crisis “is not a decree of fate, but rather the result of the ongoing unsuccessful policy of Netanyahu’s failed government.” Yesh Atid leader and former Finance Minister Yair Lapid said Netanyahu is responsible for the “crazy, inflated prices” and that in government “we fought the housing crisis, against a prime minister who always tried to trip us up.” However, Moshe Kahlon, whose socio-economic based Kulanu Party is thought to be competing with Yesh Atid for a similar pool of voters said Lapid was “alarmed” at the draft report and is “trying to cast the blame for his resounding failure to resolve the housing crisis on Netanyahu alone.”