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Political row intensifies over Israel’s defence budget
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Finance Minister Yair Lapid to end the bitter rhetoric between their two ministries over the annual defence budget.
Defence officials have reacted angrily over the past few weeks to the proposed 2015 budget, which they say is inadequate for the country’s defence and endanger Israel’s military preparedness. During the past two weeks, the IDF said that all training for reservists has been cancelled for the remainder of 2014. A further announcement said that all training for ground forces, the Israeli Navy, and the Israeli Air Force will end. Earlier this week, the Director General of the Defence Ministry, Dan Harel said all weapons and equipment procurement had been cancelled, with the result that, “The defence industry has fired and will fire thousands of workers.”
The Finance Ministry is proposing a cut of approximately £1.2 billion to the defence budget over the next three years and has rejected out of hand a request by the Defence Ministry for additional funds. In a statement earlier this month, the Finance Ministry explained that the Defence Ministry had only recently been handed a supplement and that it “must abide by a budget framework as the other ministries do.”
Both Ya’alon and Lapid have expressed clear and impassioned views on the dispute in recent weeks. Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Ya’alon accused the Finance Ministry of “shirking its responsibilities” and claimed that due to the cuts, “We are in crisis” and that, “We will be at minimal operational capacity.” Lapid meanwhile said that the Defence Ministry had failed to make cuts where possible, commenting that, “It’s the most basic part of proper management.”
Many commentators regard the dispute as an annual ritual which is normally solved through the prime minister’s allocation of an extra budget. According to Haaretz, Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday asked Ya’alon and Lapid to end the mutual recriminations, saying that he is expected to resolve the dispute in the coming weeks.