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The political and economic systems in Israel were all riled up last month because of two, seemingly unrelated, events. The first to make headlines was the well-covered dispute between former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the tremendous expenditures of the Israeli defense establishment to prepare itself for a military conflict with Iran and the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program.
The second event that caused an uproar was the publication of Israel’s 2012 national deficit, which reached a record high of NIS 39 billion [around $10 billion] — far exceeding the forecasts and estimates (to be precise: NIS 18.5 billion [$5 billion] over the forecast).
