{"id":187802,"date":"2026-07-02T16:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/187802\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T16:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:12:13","slug":"israels-golden-age-and-its-social-darwinist-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/187802\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s golden age and its social Darwinist turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Latet marks its 30th anniversary, I look back from a position few observers have had: 30 years at the head of Latet, watching Israel\u2019s social transformations from the ground up.<\/p>\n

What those 30 years have taught me is this: Israel has lived through its own Trente Glorieuses \u2013 a rare age of growth and national achievement. Despite wars, pandemics, financial crises, and political instability, the country became one of the most dynamic economies in the developed world.<\/p>\n

These thirty years will likely become a reference point in our collective memory: a period future generations will study as one of Israel\u2019s defining chapters.<\/p>\n

But every golden age casts a shadow.<\/p>\n

Today, 2.8 million Israelis live in poverty<\/a> \u2013 a rate that has barely moved in 15 years. Not because Israel lacks the resources to address it. Not because the solutions are unknown. But because, somewhere along the way, Israeli society made a quiet and mostly unspoken choice: to accept poverty as a permanent feature of the landscape.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople beg on the streets of Jerusalem. (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM\/THE JERUSALEM POST)<\/p>\n

What we are witnessing is not failure. It is a choice, and that choice has a name: social Darwinism. The quiet acceptance that those who did not succeed in the economic competition deserve their fate. That a society should organize itself around those who thrive, not those who struggle.<\/p>\n

Social justice was one of the pillars of the Zionist project. Eighty years later, that ideal has produced something close to its opposite: a society powerful enough to create extraordinary prosperity, but increasingly willing to leave millions outside it.<\/p>\n

The upcoming elections offer a striking confirmation of this diagnosis. The campaign is dominated by October 7 accountability, the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft crisis<\/a>, and the war\u2019s aftermath. These are legitimate and urgent issues. But look at the platforms of the parties competing for power, and one question is almost absent: How will Israel reduce poverty?<\/p>\n

Think about what that means. Nearly 1.5 million potential voters live below the poverty line. How can a social reality affecting such a vast electoral constituency become the blind spot of Israeli public debate? How can so many citizens generate so little serious political response?<\/p>\n

How poverty disappeared from the political agenda<\/p>\n

No candidate has ever treated poverty as what it truly is: a national security threat. A society in which one-fifth of the population is permanently excluded from prosperity is not merely unjust. It is fragile. It is divided. It is, in the long run, unsustainable.<\/p>\n

But when Israel defines a threat as existential, it finds the money. The war has already cost hundreds of billions of shekels. So the real question is not whether Israel has resources. It is what Israel chooses to define as necessary.<\/p>\n

The Elalouf Committee estimated that implementing its anti-poverty recommendations would require roughly seven to eight billion shekels per year. That amount was meant to reduce poverty significantly and bring Israel closer to OECD standards. If we can mobilize hundreds of billions to fight a military war, why can we not mobilize less than 10 billion to fight the war against poverty?<\/p>\n

The money exists. The knowledge exists. The policy tools exist. What is missing is the political will to act.<\/p>\n

As Israel enters one of the most consequential elections<\/a> in its history, I want to put this question directly to every party, every candidate, every voter: What is your plan for 2.8 million people?<\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, I founded Latet because I believed Israeli society had both the means and the conscience to care for its most vulnerable. I still believe that. But charity, however essential, is not justice.<\/p>\n

Justice requires political courage. Poverty is not fate. It is policy. And we can change it.<\/p>\n

The writer is the founder and president of Latet, Israel\u2019s leading food aid and poverty relief organization, established in 1996.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Latet marks its 30th anniversary, I look back from a position few observers have had: 30 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[1303,37,1686,26880,56178,56179,1413,36],"class_list":["post-187802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-elections","tag-israel","tag-national-security","tag-poverty","tag-poverty-in-israel","tag-poverty-line-israel","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116851267488252312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}