Israel - Week Ending April 30th

Meron Disaster, Politics, Covid and the Economy

Meron Disaster

Israelis woke up Friday morning to the tragedy of Mt Meron, where 44 ultra-Orthodox, including children, died in a stampede whose exact origins remain unclear. What, unfortunately, is clear is that this tragedy was a disaster waiting to happen. Every year more and more people come to Mt Meron to celebrate Lag Ba'Omer In the past few years, they have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The site is relatively small, and because of the bifurcated organization of the Hasidic world, each sect has its own area and is responsible for its organization and people.

The police are responsible for approving the overall setup, but the Israeli police are not exactly known for their abilities when it comes to large crowd planning. In both 2008 and 2011, the National Ombudsman warned in their reports of illegal buildings not planned and unsafe on Mt Meron. It was not the only time a tragedy took place at Meron. Arthur Ruppin wrote about a disaster in 1911 in which, because of the large crowds, a building collapsed on Lag BaOmer, killing 20 people.

According to Israeli law, because of Corona, only 100 people are allowed to gather in one place out of doors, and the Health Ministry had a plan that would have limited the number of people at Meron to 10,000 this year. The government, however, was uninterested in getting into any confrontation with the Ultra-Orthodox. Overall there is probably one cause for the tragedy, and that is slain Prime Minister Rabins most hated Israeli phrase: "Yihiye beseder'' It will be ok. He would say it would only be ok if you made it ok. While the exact form of a disaster at Meron could not be divined in advance- some tragedy was clearly in the making for many years.

Politics

On the political front, it has been a chaotic week. The week began with the Israeli Hight court demanding that a Minister of Justice be appointed within two days. The cabinet met on Tuesday. Under the law that governs the current government, the Justice Ministry belongs to Blue and White, and the Justice Minister must come from that party. Netanyahu opposed that hoping to appoint someone to that position who would be friendly towards him and take actions that might stop his trial. When the cabinet met, they voted down the motion to appoint Gantz, and then Netanyahu announced that he wanted to appoint Ophir Okunis, one of his supporters. The legal advisor to the government Attorney General Mandelblit warned that the action was illegal since the appointment had to be approved by Gantz. Still, the cabinet went ahead anyway, ignoring the law, and voted to appoint him. Mendilblit announced that the appointment was illegal and null. Later in the afternoon, at a prescheduled hearing at the Supreme Court, the court was told of the events. At the same time, an attorney representing Prime Minister Netanyahu tried to defend the action. The judges were incredulous and made it clear that this was beyond the norms that they have ever encountered. The country was in an uproar, and those very people Netanyahu was trying to convince to support him in establishing a government (Gideon Saar and Naftalie Bennet) condemned the actions. The Supreme Court issuing an immediate restraining order stating the Okunus was not the Minister of Justice and scheduled a hearing for the next day on steps forward. The next day an hour before the court session, which was going to be televised, was to be held, Netanyahu caved and agreed to appoint Ganztz Justice Minister. What was driving Netanyahu to make these decisions is not clear. Why he caved is clear, his actions to select Okunus were universally seen by all but his closest supporters as illegal. I guess that even though part of his strategy to mitigate his trial has been to undermine the justice system, the possibility of the Supreme Court Justices castigating him on live TV would not be something he could risk.

Meanwhile, negotiations continue on an alternative government between Yair Lapid, Gideon Sa'arSa'ar, and Naftalie Bennet. Agreements have been reached on many items, but there are still differences, especially when it comes to distributing the positions between the different parties, with Bennet and Sa'arSa'ar getting many more functions than their numeric size should allow them. The prevailing view is that Bennet has not made a final decision to join those opposing Netanyahu. Netanyahu'sNetanyahu's mandate runs out on Tuesday at midnight.

Human Rights Watch

The Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report claiming Israel has crossed the threshold of being an Apartheid State. Suffice it to say I disagree with the report- and rode both a column in Newsweek about it as well as a much longer piece on my website.

Covid

The Covid situation remains status quo and very positive. Daily numbers continue to average around 100 a day, with the number of seriously ill patients continuing their steady decline. There are now only 118 seriously ill patients with Corona in Israel. The big concern is the possibility of one of the variants resistant to the vaccinations entering the country. The Health Ministry wants to stop the arrival of people from India and six other hard-hit countries, but the government has not taken any action yet to do so.

Economy

Israel moved up to 19th place in GDP per capita in nominal numbers, passing Canada. Israel has been steadily rising. On the negative side, it is much lower when it comes to purchasing power parity. That is because Israel is a very expensive country, one of the most expensive in the world. The amazing thing is that since the 2011 protest against the cost of living, prices have continued to rise in many areas, but there is no plan to address the problem.

Intel announced that it was building a new development center in Haifa at the cost of $200 million. The center will result in Intel hiring an additional 1,000 employees. The center is the first designed from scratch with the idea that workers will work both at home and in the office. Intel has the most extensive presence of a Multinational in Israel, doing both production and design, and is Israel'sIsrael's largest exporter.

I had an interesting meeting with Mor Assia and Shelly Hod Moyal, the founders of the only women-led Israel VC fund iAngels. They are impressive women, and their fund is working with many companies that are having a positive impact. I hope to learn more about some of the companies in their portfolio in the future.

PS, while it's unrelated to Israel at least directly. I believe President Biden has done an excellent job in his first 100 days, and here is part of my commentary on i24 News.