[Israel] vote campaign highlights growing poverty

from Reuters

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

JERUSALEM - Gulping down his ration of chicken and rice at a Jerusalem soup kitchen, Shmuel Lax says he does not plan to vote in Israel's March 28 election.

"Who represents me anyway?" the 51-year-old asks, bitter at his lengthy unemployment and meagre welfare stipend.

Lax worked for years at an Israeli food factory and later as a fabric dyer before losing his job after a leg injury. Now he is among the growing number of Israeli poor.

Soup kitchens like the one where Lax eats, were once a rarity in Israel. Hundreds have opened in recent years.

Although conflict with the Palestinians and the fate of isolated Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank dominate the election campaign, worries over poverty are just as important for many Israelis.

Israel's economy grew 5.2 percent last year, recovering further from the recession it was knocked into by a Palestinian uprising and a global downturn in 2000. Unemployment dropped to 8.7 percent in January from 10.9 percent in 2003.

But many Israelis, especially new immigrants and low wage earners, have failed to benefit from a technology-led boom that financial analysts attribute to free market reforms and big cuts in government spending.

A fifth of Israelis now live below the poverty line, up from 15 percent in the 1990s, according to figures from Israel's National Insurance Institute, the government's main welfare arm. Among children, the figure is one in three.

The obvious poverty grates in a country where social solidarity was long seen as a cornerstone of the state.

PARTY PLATFORMS

The major parties have tuned into these concerns ahead of the election, with all calling for a war on poverty.

Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose centrist Kadima is predicted to win, said recently in parliament that poverty had "destructive consequences for a wide part of Israeli society".

Acting on a promise he made on a visit to a soup kitchen, Olmert has given preliminary approval to a plan to reduce the number of poor by instituting a negative income tax to help those on low incomes.

Leftist Labour's new leader Amir Peretz, a trade unionist from a poor Moroccan immigrant family, pushed poverty up the election agenda after he defeated veteran statesman Shimon Peres to win control of the party.

"With us, there will be no hungry children," has been a regular Peretz line during visits to poor districts.

The rightist Likud party, whose leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of hurting the poor by implementing free market reforms that involved welfare cuts when he was finance minister, wants to fight poverty by fostering economic growth.

Religious parties that seldom stray from issues of faith and country, have also sought to woo votes with campaign ads that accuse the government of doing too little to alleviate poverty.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli Arab citizens have long accounted for most of Israel's poor.

Many fervently religious Jews depend on stipends to feed large families because welfare policies let them choose bible study over work. Israeli Arabs complain of job discrimination and tend to have large single-income households. An estimated 50 percent live below the poverty line.

GROWING GAP

Analysts say the growing gap between the worst off and the rest of Israeli society has made the problem more obvious.

"To be poor among the poor is not so bad. Being poor in such a consumer-oriented culture as there is now creates a lot of problems", said Yosi Katan, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

"The poverty rates are actually worse than those reflected in the statistics," said Katan, pointing out that a large number of people live just above what is regarded as the poverty line in Israel -- 1,700 shekels (209 pounds) a month for a single person.

Poverty in Israel is still limited compared to levels seen in Palestinian territories. International agencies say over half of Palestinian families live on less than $2 a day.

Despite the campaign buzz over poverty, Israeli experts do not expect it to be the deciding factor in the poll, even if it plays a part in swinging a few seats in the new parliament.

Like Lax, many of the poor do not vote, pollsters say.

Polls also suggest that after a recent upsurge in violence, and the rise of a Palestinian government headed by the Islamic militant Hamas group that vows to destroy Israel, most Israelis still care more about security than economic issues.

However in the longer term, particularly if Israel succeeds in distancing itself further from the Palestinians to reduce conflict as Olmert plans, political analysts believe poverty is an issue that could become more influential.

Especially as the problem may get worse because poor families tend to have more children.

"I think it has the potential to threaten Israeli stability if we will not take care of it," says Daniel Gottlieb, an economist at Ben Gurion University and an adviser at the Bank of Israel.