Senior Labor Party ministers are refusing to go along with the hefty budget cuts proposed by their party leader, Finance Minister Shimon Peres.
Education Minister Yitzhak Navon said Tuesday he would vote against Peres’ economic program in the Cabinet because it would mean severe cutbacks for the school system.
Navon, a deputy prime minister and former president of Israel, ranks third in the Labor Party hierarchy.
He told reporters during a break in ministerial meetings on the budget that “the intention is to abolish free high schooling — however they try to dress it up.”
Labor’s No. 2 man, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, made clear on Monday that he would not agree to proposed cuts in the defense budget, which he estimated would come to between 450 million and 600 million shekels. He called them “dangerous and unacceptable.”
Health Minister Ya’acov Tsur, another prominent Laborite, is also balking.
This means Peres could face a rebellion in his own party when his economic program goes before the Cabinet for approval Thursday.
He also faces serious problems with the Histadrut labor federation and many individual unions. They have not assented to his reduction of the cost-of-living increments payable to Israeli wage-earners to compensate for the 13.5 percent devaluation of the shekel since Peres took office two weeks ago.
The devaluation, which amounts to a reduction of real wages, coincided with a sudden rise in prices as Peres slashed government subsidies for a wide range of products and services.
His goal is to reduce the national budget by 1 billion shekels. Peres and his aides are meeting with other government officials and key Knesset members in the hope of reaching a compromise by Thursday.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
