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The cost of defense

As this item is being typed, Israel’s defense and finance ministers are meeting to discuss the country’s 2003 defense budget.

The Defense Ministry received a $9 billion spending package this year and is now claiming that it is insufficient to cover the ongoing costs of fighting the Palestinian uprising alongside the other threats to the Israeli people. The ministry is demanding a $500 million increase next year, while the Finance Ministry is proposing a cut of roughly similar proportions.

“We’re not talking about cutting essential defense needs,” said one senior Treasury official “There are places where the fat can be removed.”

The major focus of the Treasury axe is the officer corps of the standing army. Salaries are well above the national average, and the feeling outside the IDF is that many of the top ranking personnel do precious little to earn their take-home pay.

Of course this is denied vehemently by military spokespeople. They point to a variety of statistics which suggest the military pay packet is not growing. For example, they cite Central Bureau of Statistics figures which show military pay is declining as a percentage of overall wages in the economy. In the early to mid 1980s, military salaries constituted 10.1 percent of the total, but that has been eroded slowly ever since. By 2000 the figure was down to 6.7%. However, the Treasury argues that change is down to the increase in the average wage in the economy and the emergence of a strong middle class, rather than any night of long knives in the upper echelons of the military.

The Treasury-Defense Ministry battle is an annual affair. Come July/August the defense people inevitably say there is a risk of attack from Syria/Iraq/ Hizbullah or some other Middle East power that has already been vilified by Israel. A few days later the top personnel officer in the IDF says there is a drastic shortage of cash to cover the threat. Then the Finance Ministry issues a statement saying there will be a cut in the following year’s defense budget.

Eventually the two ministries agree to agree on neither a cut nor an increase in spending – with a partial ad hoc increase often coming in the following months, via a brief debate in the Knesset Finance Committee.

The battle is well rehearsed and usually well played out. However, most political pundits see it as a sham and a battle of political wits between the incumbent ministers. This year is no exception, indeed the fight is perhaps one of the most politically-based in recent years.

In the blue corner Finance Minister Sylvan Shalom, in the red corner Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

Both are in political battles. Not with each other, but to some extent with themselves.

Ben-Eliezer knows he has to prove himself in the next few months. The permanent leadership of his Labor Party is there for the taking, but he knows that a poor performance on the defense front will cost his votes in the upcoming leadership primary.

His only declared rival is former Health Minister Haim Ramon. So far Ramon has failed to impress the voters – likely to be more than 100,000 come polling day. But all the time Labor activists are demanding to know what Ben-Eliezer has achieved. And the gloves are off. It will be a no-holds-barred fight between them, which means Ramon could throw several low punches. He is already accusing Ben-Eliezer of a botched job over the construction of a security fence between pre- and post-1967 Israel. And the truth is Ramon’s accusation of pussyfooting seems convincing. Ben-Eliezer seemingly only decided to push the idea of the fence within the last few months, while his party colleagues first called for the buffer more than a year ago.

So Ben-Eliezer has to show he is a bruiser who can come out with a win to his name. A budget increase of any proportions for the military could be the victory he needs, with that decision likely to be taken between now and Labor’s leadership primary that has been scheduled for November.

While less pressing, Shalom too knows he has to account well for himself as Finance Minister. It is unlikely that he will run against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in any upcoming Likud Party primary – that honor he will leave to former premier Binyamin Netanyahu.

Shalom is looking beyond that. He wants to be the leader of the party post-Sharon or Netanyahu. But all the time he is jockeying for that position, particularly with Education Minister Limor Livnat. They have been battling one another for some time, but largely unnoticed by the outside world. The only public sign of their spat has been over the schools’ budget. However, The Media Line believes the two political personalities are locked in a serious power struggle.

So, like Ben-Eliezer, any victory right now is one in the bag for use in another context on another day.

The hope is that the technocrats in the two ministries will find enough common ground to reach a sensible compromise, allowing the IDF to get on with its real job, while the politicians squabble amongst themselves – sadly, as usual.