The chareidi community has been beaten for more than a year with the slogan "Sharing the Burden." HaBayit HaYehudi, the heir and successor of the Israeli Mizrachi party has supported the effort led by Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party to force the chareidi community to share the "burden" of life in Israel. Their declared aims are to force lifestyle choices on the chareidi community to serve in the army and to join the work force in a larger proportion than they do today. They have also slashed government support for the chareidi community, even for such basic services as education.
After more than a decade of cuts, the chareidi community was not getting much money even before this anti-chareidi government took control about a year ago. It is not even clear if the chareidi community gets back in government support more than it actually pays out in taxes.
So, where is the money going? A big drain on the Israeli budget is the Settlement enterprise in Yehuda and Shomron. Former Treasury Minister said, in November 2012 when he was still in office, "We have managed to double, I say this in a clear and explicit fashion, to double the economic and financial support and transfers [of money] by the government to settlements... We have done this with a low profile, with the cooperation of the leaders of the settlements, with mayors, heads of local councils and the Council of Yesha." In 2011, expenses for the settlements rose 38% while the number of residents of the settlements rose by only 5%.
The cost of security for the settlers is astronomical. Every small group must be protected, sometimes by more soldiers than residents. But more than the cost of security, every founding of a settlement is a robbery of the public till. Expensive infrastructure has to be stretched out to the middle of nowhere, far from the main trunk lines. Roads must be paved, sometimes taking roundabout routes. Regular transportation must use expensive armored vehicles. All these are financed by the State of Israel at the same time that cuts are made to essential social services.
The yeshiva world has been cut recently without any mercy. At the same time, the national-religious institutions, including the hesder yeshivos, have gotten big boosts.
According to the budgetary formula in use until six months ago, a point system was used to divide up the overall budget for Torah institutions from the Ministry of Education. A regular chareidi yeshiva student was one point. A hesder student got 1.35 points. A student at an institution that encouraged army service was 1.75 points. A student at a girls' medrasha was 1.25 points.
Under the new system, a chareidi yeshiva students remains at one point. But a hesder student is now 2.8 points and a student at an institution that encouraged army service is 3.6 points!
The national-religious institutions also get money from the Ministry of Defense. In the past the Ministry of Education limited the total support to the equivalent of 3.6 points, but under the new guidelines it wants to raise the limit to 5.05 points.
The bottom line is that a student in a hesder yeshiva (meaning the hesder yeshiva gets per student) NIS 25,628 ($7,320) and a chareidi yeshiva gets NIS 2,880 ($820) per year per student.
The State and army of Israel protects every settlement, legal or not. Human life is the highest value and properly so. The question is why they have to settle in out-of-the-way locations. It is true that one has a basic right o live wherever he chooses, but living in these remote and very dangerous places is at our expense. "If people knew how to quantify the astronomical costs — that's the word, astronomical — of protecting these isolated settlements, they would tear their hair out," says a senior officer in the Yehuda area.
In many cases the settlers need an escort wherever they go: to classes, to the grocery store in the next settlement (which can be very far in a neighborhood where the only immediate neighbors are hostile Palestinians). "We escort settlers to prayers three times a day. This is not to mention Shabbat where we escort settlers to pray in a minyan in full battle dress," says an officer.
A study in "Kalkalist" found that in 2010 the 6,000 residents of Har Chevron got NIS 10,620 per person in total government funding (not counting protection and security). This was four times the amount given to residents of Dimona, five times the amount given to residents of Arad and eight times the amount received per resident of Jerusalem.
From 2007 through 2012, the settlements received 17% of the spending of the Ministry of Housing. Since they are only 4% of the population, each resident got four times as much as the average Israeli living elsewhere. Out of the direct grants given by the Ministry of the Interior the settlements got 14%, more than triple their proportion of the population. Those living in the settlements paid 30% less, on average, or Arnona, the municipal tax. In 2011 the Minister of Housing spent NIS 11 million on projects in the settlements, which was 29% of the total budget that year.
