Defense spending will be cut by several billion shekels annually to pay for increased social welfare spending • Move will be formally announced on Monday by Trajtenberg Committee • Army sources warn cuts could jeopardize Israel's security.
Cuts could mean less training, which proved a major problem in 2006 Second Lebanon War. | Photo credit: Ziv Koren | ||||
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Israel's defense budget will be trimmed by billions of shekels and the Finance Ministry will be granted supervision over the defense establishment's finances, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided. The steps are expected to be formally announced on Monday as part of the recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee, which was appointed by the prime minister in August to address the recent social justice protests.
The cuts will be used to pay for increased spending on social welfare programs such as housing and education. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Sunday that the cuts would be instituted gradually, beginning with NIS 1 billion ($270 million) in 2012 and rising to NIS 3 billion ($810 million) in 2013.
Additionally, the Finance Ministry will be given access to Israel Defense Forces computers, allowing it to oversee defense budgets and salaries for the first time. The move, long sought by the Finance Ministry, is also expected to save money. “Transparency and oversight will lead to an automatic cut in the defense budget, which will reach several billion shekels a year,” Steinitz told Israel Hayom on Sunday.
Steinitz had harsh words on Sunday for Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who has called for exceeding the current budgetary framework in order to pay for the Trajtenberg Committee's recommendations, rather than cutting back on defense spending. “Talk is cheap,” Steinitz said. “Barak doesn't understand the global world in which we are living.”
IDF sources said yesterday that while they had not received official notice of any impending budget reductions, any such cuts would result in grave consequences. “If the defense budget is cut, the IDF will be unable to prepare properly for [security] threats,” they said.
“We are watching as Iran develops its nuclear program, we know what is going on in Lebanon and Syria, and without even mentioning Egypt and other countries, we can say that we will reach an extremely difficult situation as far as our ability to deal with these threats is concerned. If they cut NIS 3 billion [$810 million], the IDF will be NIS 6 billion [$1.62 billion] short, and that's a sum that the IDF simply cannot do without,” a senior IDF General Staff officer told Israel Hayom on Sunday.
The defense budget currently stands at NIS 50.5 billion ($13.65 billion), of which $3 billion comes from U.S. military aid. A large chunk of the defense budget pays for salaries, pensions, manpower costs, food and other purposes, and cannot be cut. According to the officer, the proposed cuts would leave the IDF with only NIS 24 billion ($6.5 billion) in “flexible” funds, which could conceivably be cut. “If there are budget cuts, we will simply freeze projects, with all that implies,” he said.
In 2007, the government-appointed Brodet Commission found widespread waste and inefficiencies in the way the IDF handled its budgets, concluding that it had no incentive to streamline, since it assumed the government would meet all its budgetary needs. The commission proposed a number of steps to make the IDF more efficient which were never fully implemented.
Currently, the IDF budget constitutes 15 percent of annual government spending.
In light of media reports on the impending cuts, the IDF has begun to consider its steps should the cuts actually occur. On Sunday night, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with heads of the security establishment to discuss the move's implications and to formulate the army's position on the matter.
