No better alternative

In presenting the report of the committee for socio-economic change, Professor Manuel Trajtenberg described the events of the summer on the boulevards and town squares as a deluxe protest: quiet, restrained and nonviolent, exemplary and praiseworthy. To paraphrase Israeli poet Alexander Penn, if it happens again, it will be different -- very different.

Fear of future protests is not a sufficient reason to approve or reject the Trajtenberg report when it returns to the cabinet's agenda on Sunday. But it is certainly something to consider seriously, one of many considerations, as the government's ministers, and later the Knesset and perhaps even the courts, take a lasting stance on the issues. Nobody wants to see Israeli police on the bridge over the Yarkon river, as their colleagues in New York were photographed this week in Brooklyn.

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Trajtenberg submitted an admirable report, but it has a few holes, which everyone keeps finding in different places. In my eyes, the committee's proposal to cut Israel's defense budget is extremely dangerous. Even Defense Minister Ehud Barak's moderate and conditional counterproposal deserves a resounding “no.” Maj. Gen. (res.) Professor Yitzhak Ben Yisrael soberly observed this week in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper that defense cuts would in any case be temporary. The Arab world “does not recognize our existence ... [the budget] will soon be supplemented, but in the meantime we are liable to pay an unbearable price.”

There are sources for the funds. In New York, 90 percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews work. In Israel, the number is only 39%. That's the answer. And what of the NIS 150 billion in black-market profits raked in by the tycoons and the large corporations? The government does not tax this income, while the courts levy laughable penalties.

The proposals on housing are not perfect either. The committee hinted, much to the chagrin of the ultra-Orthodox, at the need to grant priority to military veterans. In practice, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already secured approval of the “national housing committees” law. The law's intentions are good, provided that maximum prices for housing are set. However, developers report that the new law has yet to deliver results. The committee's chapter on education could also use some work.

Regardless of all that, the general trend proposed by the Trajtenberg Committee's report is positive. Not only does it point us in the right direction, it also lays out the obvious first steps. Yet there is a real danger that a strange emerging coalition of tycoons, marketing firms, protesters and ultra-Orthodox will thwart its implementation.

It would be one thing if there was a better alternative. But there isn't -- the alternative is nothing. Standing swamp waters are a recipe for a social and economic tsunami. Now is the time to get things moving. The necessary changes can be made later.

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