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Yediot Aharonot notes that the introduction to the recently-issued National Insurance Institute Annual Poverty Report for 2010 states – inter alia – that, "Even the appreciable growth that has characterized the economy in six of the past seven years, has not succeeded in substantially changing the plight of the poor," and adds, "The sentence summarizes Israel’s social tragedy: The great surge in the middle of the first decade of the 21st century has passed by the poor. The rate of poor families (20%), of poor people (25%) and of children living under the poverty line (35%) has not changed over the past five-or-six years of rapid growth." The author asserts that "one of the outstanding and exceptional characteristics of Israeli poverty is the high proportion of working poor," and says, "The phenomenon of poor wage-earners has worsened lately because many Arab and ultra-orthodox young people are joining the labor force – but at the bottom of the salary scale."
The paper claims that, "The latest poverty report can explain why enlightened public opinion was shaken by the price of cottage cheese and not by poverty. Only 10% of non-ultra-orthodox Jewish families, approximately 160,000 of whom are of working age, are below the poverty line. They are weak in every understanding and their voices are lost among the shouts of the Jewish middle class, which includes at least 1 million families." The author concludes with another excerpt from the Poverty Report: "A policy of increasing social justice that abandons the poorest is not worthy of the name. It is impossible to have pretensions of doing justice if the weakest are left outside."
Haaretz calls for a return to negotiations in the medical residents’ dispute: "The residents’ key demand is to shorten the duration of the collective bargaining agreement signed in August, from nine years to three. But last week Supreme Court President Beinisch said the talks should address only the residents’ resignations because "there is a signed agreement and it is binding." The Israel Medical Association fought hard for six months to reach an agreement that would be good for all Israeli physicians. The treasury would not have agreed to new job slots, the creation of new positions and an average wage hike of 47 percent, among other benefits, had the agreement not been long-term. Therefore the contract should not be reopened, but perhaps there are changes the parties can agree on nevertheless, such as increasing overtime pay, providing for an additional rest day and supplying transportation. It is hoped that the residents will respond in the affirmative to the court today and resume negotiations with the treasury."
The Jerusalem Post comments on the proposed reform of how justices are chosen for the Supreme Court: "The majority of the selection committee is composed of justices and members of the legal profession. It is this issue that has often led reformers to charge that the court ‘appoints itself’. The bill currently before the Knesset would give the government one more vote on the selection committee. Israel’s Supreme Court is unique in the democratic West. Not only does it afford itself the power as a High Court of Justice to intervene in a wide range of issues affecting Israeli citizens, it also exerts a great deal of influence over its own composition. There are important questions that the legislative and executive branches of government should ask about how it is composed, and those questions are democratic ones, not signs of creeping totalitarianism."
Ma’ariv refers to the failed campaign to have the Dead Sea chosen as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and wonders, "If the Government of Israel intends to deal seriously with the decline of the Dead Sea or whether the campaign of text messages was its last move to save it?"
Yisrael Hayom comments on the state of US presidential politics less than a year before the elections and observes that "The possibility that Romney, who has succeeded in building an efficient organization and has formulated an impressive economic platform, will compete is a gloomy prospect for Obama." The author contends that "if the American economy continues to tank even in an election year, and given the assumption that the President’s maneuvering room in dealing with the economy continues to be limited by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, the Massachusetts’ technocrat’s route to Pennsylvania Avenue is paved, even if he is a Mormon. Against this background, one can only wait and see if Americans relate to Romney’s faith with the same degree of tolerance as they related to the fact that the Democratic candidate from Romney’s state who conquered the White House 51 years ago, John F. Kennedy, was Catholic."
[Sever Plocker, Aviv Lavie, and Prof. Avraham Ben-Tzvi wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv and Yisrael Hayom, respectively.]