JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Wednesday to release at least $54 million to Arab towns after his finance minister’s decision to withhold them drew accusations of racism.
Netanhayu said the money would be transferred after a review but gave no details on what that would entail or how long it would take. His spokesperson declined further comment.
“Israel’s Arab citizens deserve what all citizens do and I’m committed to this. I demand this of all government ministries and it will be carried out following an evaluation to ensure that funds are transferred for their designated purpose – Israel’s Arab citizens,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
At the same time, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich doubled down on the fund freeze at a press briefing.
Echoing his earlier announcement, Smotrich, a member of Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition, told reporters on Wednesday that he was withholding budget funds marked for Arab local councils out of fear that the money would end up in the hands of criminals and terrorists.
Arab community leaders said the minister was guided by racism.
“The finance minister is continuing his campaign of incitement against Arab society and its elected leaders,” said the National Committee of Arab Local Councils in Israel.
Arab citizens, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who stayed in the new Israeli state after the 1948 war surrounding its creation, make up about a fifth of Israel’s population.
Palestinian citizens in Israel have for decades faced social and economic disparities with Jewish citizens, including high poverty, overcrowding, inadequate infrastructure and poorly funded schools.
The funding, earmarked for basic services and development in 67 Arab local councils, is an effort to correct years of insufficient budget allocations and to narrow the gaps between Jewish Israeli and Palestinian communities, said Ameer Bisharat, CEO of the National Committee of Arab Local Councils in Israel.
Israel’s Netanyahu pledges to unfreeze funds for Arab towns
https://arab.news/mv6ef
Israel’s Netanyahu pledges to unfreeze funds for Arab towns
- Netanhayu said the money would be transferred after a review but gave no details
- Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich doubled down on the fund freeze
Lebanon PM says IMF wants rescue plan changes as crisis deepens
- “We want to engage with the IMF. We want to improve. This is a draft law,” Salam said
- “They wanted the hierarchy of claims to be clearer. The talks are all positive”
DAVOS, Switzerland: The International Monetary Fund has demanded amendments to a draft rescue law aimed at hauling Lebanon out of its worst financial crisis on record and giving depositors access to savings frozen for six years, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said.
The “financial gap” law is part of a series of reform measures required by the IMF in order to access its funding and aims to allocate the losses from Lebanon’s 2019 crash between the state, the central bank, commercial banks and depositors.
Salam told Reuters the IMF wants clearer provisions in the hierarchy of claims, which is a core element of the draft legislation designed to determine how losses are allocated.
“We want to engage with the IMF. We want to improve. This is a draft law,” Salam said in an interview at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
“They wanted the hierarchy of claims to be clearer. The talks are all positive,” Salam added.
In 2022, the government put losses from the financial crisis at about $70 billion, a figure that analysts and economists forecast is now likely to be higher.
Salam stressed that Lebanon is still pushing for a long-delayed IMF program, but warned the clock is ticking as the country has already been placed on a financial ‘grey list’ and risks falling onto the ‘blacklist’ if reforms stall further.
“We want an IMF program and we want to continue our discussions until we get there,” he said, adding: “International pressure is real ... The longer we delay, the more people’s money will evaporate.”
The draft law, which was passed by Salam’s government in December, is under parliamentary review. It aims to give depositors a guaranteed path to recovering their funds, restart bank lending, and end a financial crisis that has left nearly a million accounts frozen and confidence in the system shattered.
The roadmap would repay depositors up to $100,000 over four years, starting with smaller accounts, while launching forensic audits to determine losses and responsibility.
Lebanon’s Finance Minister Yassine Jaber, who is driving the reform push with Salam, told Reuters it was essential to salvage a hollowed-out banking system, and to stop the country from sliding deeper into its cash-only, paralyzed economy.
The aim, Jaber said, is to give depositors clarity after years of uncertainty and to end a system that has crippled Lebanon’s international standing.
He framed the law as part of a broader reckoning: the first time a Lebanese government has confronted a combined collapse of the banking sector, the central bank and the state treasury.
Financial reforms have been repeatedly derailed by political and private vested interests over the last six years and Jaber said the responsibility now lies with lawmakers.
Failure to act, he said, would leave Lebanon trapped in “a deep, dark tunnel” with no way back to a functioning system.
“Lebanon has become a cash economy, and the real question is whether we want to stay on the grey list, or sleepwalk into a blacklist,” Jaber added.
