The most potent indication that the conclusions of the Elalouf Committee to Reduce Poverty in Israel will fall apart and ultimately get buried can be seen in the tepid, premeditated response of Finance Minister Yair Lapid to the report’s release on June 23. The Yesh Atid Party chairman is fully capable of using his rhetorical skills when he's trying to convince his listeners that some issue or other is near and dear to his heart and that he plans to fight for it. Nevertheless, his response to the report was cautious and calculated — even though it was commissioned by Welfare Minister Meir Cohen from Lapid’s own party.

Yesh Atid held a faction meeting shortly after committee Chairman Eli Elalouf submitted the report to Cohen at a well-publicized event. During the meeting, Lapid announced: “We will study the recommendations of the Elalouf Committee in depth with the goal of introducing some of its recommendations into the 2015 budget. We will look into ways of translating the report into a long-term plan over the coming decade, to reduce gaps in Israeli society.”

As finance minister, Lapid is well-aware that he will not be able to budget even a quarter of the committee’s ambitious recommendations, which are estimated to cost between 6 billion and 7 billion shekels per year ($1.75 billion to $2 billion). That would be absolutely impossible, especially with the Finance Ministry preparing to make cuts to the 2015 budget. Based on Lapid’s comments, it's obvious that he has no plans to fight his own ministry’s bureaucrats or the government for the billions of shekels necessary to implement the Elalouf report.

At the same time that Lapid was making his halfhearted remarks, senior Finance Ministry officials were quick to announce that the committee’s conclusions had no basis in reality. It was the opening shot in a salvo of sharp responses to the committee. Surprisingly, most of these came from the social opposition in the Knesset. Challenges to the conclusions from Labor Party Chairman Isaac Herzog, Knesset members Shelly Yachimovich and Stav Shafir, along with a finance minister who is not at all eager to implement the conclusions and a prime minister who ignored the report entirely, are a lethal combination, impeding any chance of the recommendations being carried out.