On the 100th day of the Swords of Iron War that began with the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023 Israel’s government met to approve the 2024 state budget, one that of necessity will be a wartime budget, since Israel’s military operation to eradicate Hamas in Gaza is expected to continue for many more months.
The government will also begin work on freeing Israel from dependence on external suppliers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday in opening remarks to the weekly cabinet meeting.
Israel’s dependence on external acquisitions and the disadvantages such dependence brings, has become painfully clear.
The current war is a fight for survival, as became clear when Beirut-based Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told the Lebanese LBCI news outlet in an interview translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country. “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood (ed: Oct 7) is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”
Hamas Official Ghazi Hamad: We Will Repeat the October 7 Attack Time and Again Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims – Everything We Do Is Justified #Hamas #Gaza #Palestinians pic.twitter.com/kXu3U0BtAP
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) November 1, 2023
The Hamas-led terrorists tortured, raped, beheaded, burned and slaughtered more than 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, in dozens of communities and several military bases along the Gaza border. They wounded thousands more, and abducted 250 people who were dragged into Gaza, of whom 136 remain in captivity, not all of whom are living.
Israel is determined to eliminate this existential threat from its border once and for all. The goals of its current war are to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, return the hostages — all of them, including four who have been held captive in Gaza since 2014 — and to ensure that Gaza never again becomes a threat to Israel by destroying Hamas, demilitarizing the enclave, and deradicalizing the population.
However, it has taken more than three months just to wrest the northern sector of Gaza from the organized military framework of the Hamas terror organization, and pockets of Hamas and other terrorists are still active in the sector and pose a threat to IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians alike.
Both the prime minister and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have repeatedly warned Israeli and international “friends” alike — including the United States — that this war will take “many months” and that a new terrorist regime cannot be allowed to take control in Gaza “the day after Hamas”.
The defense minister said in a separate statement Sunday that Israel “will not stop until Hamas is defeated. The IDF is fighting the most just war in our history. And while we face a brutal enemy, we continue maintaining moral and professional standards, taking measures to distinguish between the civilian population and terrorists. It’s been 100 days, yet we will not stop until we win.”
The prime minister focused his remarks on the necessity of austerity measures due to the need to significantly increase the defense budget for the months ahead.
“While this budget is indeed an annual budget, it is a budget for a year in which we are at war. This requires us to incur far greater security expenditures than we planned,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday in opening remarks to the weekly cabinet meeting.
“We also understand that we will need to invest in a multi-year plan to free the State of Israel from dependence on external acquisitions for many items – in local procurement, in local production capabilities; all of this will reach the Government table,” he said.
During the 2014 war with Hamas, the Obama Administration deliberately held up the delivery to Israel of important military replacement items, including Hellfire missiles in an attempt to force Israel into a far-too-early ceasefire with the murderous terrorists who were attempting to annihilate the state.
Although President Joe Biden has not done this, and in fact has been deeply supportive and understanding of Israel’s need to eliminate this existential threat, 2024 is a presidential election year in the United States and the winner of that election could easily decide otherwise on January 20, 2025.
“At this moment, what is required is, first of all, to cover the expenses of the war and to allow us to conduct the war in the coming year and complete it, including eliminating Hamas, returning our hostages and restoring security and the sense of security in both the north and the south so that the residents can return there.
“We will also submit here compensation and grants for reservists, the families of reservists, and the self-employed; they deserve a whole range of benefits. We are also submitting an increased budget for rebuilding the communities and the kibbutzim, and – of course – for returning the evacuees,” he said.
Netanyahu said that although the initial goal is to achieve immediate security, the government is also “laying the foundations for security for generations.”
The expense, and the necessary belt-tightening, he said, would be shared by all the ministries, with the Prime Minister’s Office taking some of the largest cuts. With that, he also promised there were items that will not be compromised.
“For example, tax credit points for parents of children aged 0-3, because this serves these people. These are usually people aged 30-40, they are now serving; this assists those who serve. I have also said that VAT (sales tax) will not be raised this year,” Netanyahu said.
“We usually do not raise taxes. It seems to me that the only taxes that we are submitting in this budget and in this year are on bank profits. There is also a tax on cigarettes. I know that there is good news about the investments we are providing to the Intel plant and the high-tech industry, but – first and foremost – there is vast investment in security,” he said.
Even so, he warned, the deficit will be increased because financing the large increase in the security budget will necessitate having to temporarily increase the deficit for this year.
“We have the possibility of increasing the deficit,” he said, but added that regardless, large budget cuts will be necessary. He urged his coalition partners to “share in the burden.”
Whether they will view things the same way remains to be seen.
