Israel defense minister refuses to consider IDF pension cuts
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon was quoted as saying privately on July 23 that the Locker Commission report would not be implemented as long as he is in office. This threat was part of a brutal, no-holds-barred campaign — perhaps unprecedented in its extent — launched last week by the defense establishment with Ya'alon at its head to torpedo the conclusions of the Locker Commission tasked with examining Israel’s defense spending.
The commission appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2014, headed by his former top military aide Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yohanan Locker, surprised the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) when it issued its critical report on July 21 featuring a new financial model for payment of retirement pensions. IDF career soldiers are considered public servants but do not enjoy tenure. Their retirement age and pension benefits have been subject to public controversy for several years now. Apart from the pension issue, the commission also attacked the lack of transparency and clarity in the defense budget.
“This report is superficial, highly unbalanced and completely detached from the reality of the State of Israel,” Ya'alon lashed out, claiming that the recommendations eroding the benefits of career army soldiers are the result of incitement and could result in a massive walkout. Subsequently, he even boycotted a meeting with Locker and the prime minister to underline his vehement protest.
The chief IDF spokesman, Maj. Gen. Moti Almoz, also issued a sharp response, calling the report’s findings “a bullet between the eyes.” The director general of the Defense Ministry, Gen. (Res.) Dan Harel, was also aggressive in his response, claiming that implementation of the report would destroy the military.
The wives of the career soldiers were also thrown into the fray, providing the media with personal monologues about the lack of appreciation toward their partners who sacrifice their lives for the state. The Facebook page Protest of the Career Soldiers’ Wives was also launched at the same time.
Judging by past experience, once the storm dies down the Locker report will find itself on a shelf as did both reports of two previous commissions appointed to examine defense spending: the 2006 Brodet Commission and the 2009 Goren Commission.
Nonetheless, even if it is not implemented, the Locker report is an important historic document that shows the way, poses reasoned probing questions about the way things are currently done, fashions a new reality and, most importantly, reflects the social reality in Israel in the wake of the 2011 social protest.
That is probably the reason for the outrage among the defense chiefs. After all, this is not their first campaign against attempts to cut their retirement benefits. This time, it seems, they understand that public sentiment has changed and people will no longer be swayed by the usual manipulations about career soldiers sacrificing their lives, threats of massive resignations from the IDF and danger to the country’s security.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has already demonstrated a keen ability to sense the public mood, was quick to embrace the Locker report, praising it as a “brave report for a brave army, [which] has a social, defense and economic message.”
Members of the Locker Commission were wise to suggest increased defense spending. This way, the IDF cannot claim once again — as it has in the past — that its budget is being cut even as the threats to the country keep growing. The report’s bombshell lies in the pension payments it recommends.
Currently, all career soldiers without exception are entitled to retire at a young age, about 47, and to receive a “bridge pension” for 20 years, until the official state retirement age of 67. This is essentially a 20-year government paycheck for people it no longer employs, a growing expense that could place an unbearable burden on the public coffers.
The Locker Commission recommends paying the “bridge pension” only to combat soldiers, who are a relatively small group. Most other career soldiers would get a generous retirement bonus of some 900,000 Israeli shekels ($235,000). These figures conjure up the upsetting dichotomy of the Israeli labor market — one of the engines of the social protest: on one hand, a group of “privileged” state employees, among them the career soldiers, who enjoy social benefits, generous retirement pay and employment security, and on the other, a growing group of workers devoid of any benefits, chief among them contract workers. While the average monthly pay stands at less than 10,000 Israeli shekels ($2,400), the average pay of career soldiers is double that and more, depending on their rank.
Thus, the new discourse in the wake of the social protest cannot express empathy toward the “cry of the privileged,” which appears cut off and greedy. After all, the Locker report does not target combat career soldiers who endanger their lives. It exempts them and maintains their privileges. It also does not cut training and rearmament budgets.
The Locker report puts the cards on the table and bravely says that things cannot go on as they are, that the pension payments will eventually sink the state budget. Therefore, the report determines that there’s no reason to pay “bridge pensions” to most career soldiers for whom military service is a job like any other: legal advisers, accountants, logistics staff, computer experts and other professionals. Nonetheless, the report recommends compensating them with a generous bonus of which most Israeli workers can only dream.
The scare-mongering with threats of a massive walkout by career soldiers is ridiculous. Even if the Locker report were to be fully implemented, the military would still be an excellent workplace offering superb conditions, respectable pay and employment security. The same cannot be said for the high-tech sector, for instance.
The demand for transparency in the defense budget is another reflection of the social protest. At the news conference presenting the report, Locker said he thinks that in 2015 every Israeli should know where all of his tax money is going, in every government office, including the Ministry of Defense, within the limits of what can be revealed. That goal requires transparency on the part of the defense agencies vis-a-vis the Treasury.
Therefore, contrary to Ya'alon’s claims, the Locker report is not cut off from the reality of our lives. It is Ya'alon who actually sounds cut off. The Israeli public, and some of the politicians — such as Bennett, Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ze’ev Elkin, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, and even Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon — think the report is important and feasible.
Perhaps the exaggerated reactions by Ya׳alon and the army chiefs indicate that they sense a momentous change is afoot and that the Locker report, even if not implemented, will keep influencing and shaking up the establishment, and eventually change will come.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/yohanan-locker-idf-career-officers-pension-salaries-yaalon.html#ixzz3gwR4sJZz
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