Israelis Demand a Welfare State

This is the moving spirit of the movement. It is a challenge not just to Netanyahu but to the entire political system. Israel has many political parties. But at least since Ronald Reagan’s emissaries imposed monetarist fundamentalism in the mid-1980s, economic debate has usually been close to comatose. “Left” has come to be a synonym for dovish on foreign policy, “right” with being hawkish, and both terms have lost their economic meaning. Politicians identified both locally and abroad as being on the left have often sounded as Thatcherite as those of the right. Shaffir’s comments and the signs along Rothschild Boulevard calling for a “Welfare State Now” express Israel’s earlier social-democratic ethos and suggest that the deep beliefs of a society can run underground for decades and then gush to the surface. The suddenly renewed debate isn’t just about economic specifics; it’s about the basic purpose of economic policy: Is holding down inflation and encouraging growth enough, or is the state responsible for making sure that citizens can eat decently, afford a home, receive medical care, get an education, live without economic fear?