On Sept. 30, the end of Yom Kippur, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued one of the most cynical messages he has ever posted on Facebook. In it, he said he wanted to bless the “agreements reached with the organizations of the disabled” and noted that this is a “historic agreement that will bring about a dramatic improvement in the situation of the handicapped in Israel.” He made sure, of course, to take credit and also praised Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and the Knesset members who worked on formulating the agreement, which is supposed to correct a 15-year-long wrong in providing pensions for the disabled in Israel.
Netanyahu has no reason to feel proud. As finance minister in 2003, he led in terminating the policy linking pensions for the disabled to the average market wage within the framework of economic austerity measures he imposed on recipients of government welfare as part of his economic plan to stabilize the market. The determined finance minister hurt not only the disabled, but also the elderly, Holocaust survivors and, in cutting child allowances, the ultra-Orthodox.
With time, the pensions for the disabled have further eroded. Netanyahu gave in to pressure from the ultra-Orthodox in 2009 when he returned to the prime minister’s office and revoked the cuts to child allowances. The disabled, on the other hand, were ignored, abandoned and without political power or a lobby to advocate for them.
As prime minister for almost a solid decade, Netanyahu has had so many opportunities to right this wrong. But under his leadership, the situation for the disabled has only gotten worse. Thus, Netanyahu is the last person who should be congratulating himself or seeking political rewards for the agreement on the disabled. It isn’t, after all, a peace agreement with the Palestinians, an attack on the Iranian nuclear program or a pact healing the rifts between the left and the right that are tearing the nation apart. Rather, it is a proper act of leadership, backed by consensus, that the prime minister should have done long ago.
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