It took just three days for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to walk back support for the five-year plan to develop the Arab sector advanced by the Likud’s own Minister of Social Equality Gila Gamliel. According to the program, which was approved at a special Cabinet meeting on Dec. 30, over the next five budgetary years, the Arab sector would receive a total of 15 billion shekels ($3.8 billion) to develop infrastructure, housing and construction, employment, education and public transportation.
Ever since her appointment to the post in March, Gamliel has attempted to convince Netanyahu, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the plan's importance. It isn’t easy to convince the ministers of the current right-wing government to vote in support of a program that grants comprehensive assistance to Israel’s Arab towns and villages, and certainly not in the amount of billions of shekels, which would likely reduce the budgets available for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
