This economic plan is the best way to kill the Israeli economy

The government's economic plan for dealing with the effects of lockdown has more holes than a Swiss cheese.

By ORLY SEGAL
The Bodies on Display protest in Tel Aviv, June 2020 (photo credit: ANAT GROSS)
The Bodies on Display protest in Tel Aviv, June 2020
(photo credit: ANAT GROSS)
Independent women from all over the country gathered last Tuesday evening at Habima Square to demonstrate one of the most difficult exhibitions here – the bodies display – warning that if there would not be any solutions in the economic plan, no real help for the self-employed and small businesses, the Israeli economy is in danger of collapsing.
As a public relations practitioner in the culinary field, I do not want to offend Swiss cheese, and so I do not call the economic plan a Swiss cheese, even though it is full of holes. Mostly holes.
About two months ago, several dozen self-employed and small businesses owners came together to discuss the situation. We protested, demonstrated and joined forces with other organizations but our outcry was not heard. The past three months have also caused the most belligerent independents to sink in day in and day out, lick the economic wounds and try to figure out if and how to move on.
But now, after so much time has passed, we have decided that it is no longer possible to gather at the door of our mothers and ask for pennies, and we must continue to flood the unresolved problem – the plight of the self-employed and the independent.
Those self-employed people, some of whom cannot open their business and repatriate those employees who are about to end the furlough period, which will make employees and employers unemployed. Those self-employed people who will not be able to support their family and will go into debt to providers, who will also get hurt. The circle of injury hits so many.
The holes in the economic plan are many. Like what? A third government grant calculated by cycles of March-April this year, compared to last year. Why March and April? Firstly, we were in quarantine in May, and in some businesses in June as well, but the main problem is that a large part of the self-employed are paid by an ongoing payment +30 days, or +60 days, etc., so in March they received payments on January and February. It is precisely in May and June that we find ourselves without any income. Did the government choose March to April rather than March to June, as they momentarily wanted to fix, but then regretted to avoid compensation? It is precisely now that the market is about to come back to life that we find ourselves without the resources needed to live and certainly move the wheels of our livelihood.
The one-time “unemployment benefit” grant that we were given in hilarious amounts, and for one month only, is it supposed to compensate the self-employed for a lack of work for several months in a row? What happens if we close down for another quarantine? Is this one-time “pocket money” that the government has given us will be all the help we get under that economic plan and who the hell thinks that this amount is enough for something?
Shall we talk about the loans? After all, only some of us were approved and then in most cases only a small part of the amount that businesses wanted to receive really came, and these are just a few examples of the many holes in this plan. It should be clear; these holes will not bring the economy to recession. We are already in a recession, but this plan may cause the Israeli economy to shut down.
The government’s decision that the self-employed should not eat in May, even though it required them not to earn a living, creates and will create bodies of people and businesses, literally. So we decided to produce a bodywork to visually illustrate the bodies of businesses. Each of us wore a black bag of her body, a body ID tag bearing her business name and hoped our cry will be heard and someone in the government will decide to act responsibly and through leadership save the collapse of the economy in Israel.


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