The defense budget crisis in Israel turned from a financial dispute into a public confrontation between the Ministry of Finance and the military establishment, after the ministry responded harshly to the Israeli army’s warnings about declining readiness and lack of funding, accusing the security system of managing a “parallel budget” without transparency, and using security as a “blank check” at the expense of the public, while warning that the continuation of this approach may leave the state without the financial ability to finance a large-scale confrontation in the future.
According to a report by journalist Avi Ashkenazi in the Israeli newspaper “Maariv”, the Ministry of Finance’s response came after publishing information about the decline in the readiness of the Israeli army in light of the budget crisis and the refusal to transfer an addition worth 40 billion shekels to the defense budget.
The ministry said, “The allegations directed at the Ministry of Finance are baseless and contradict the truth. The budget that was agreed upon was transferred by the Ministry of Finance more than a month ago, and is now awaiting approval by the Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Security Committees in the Knesset.”
She added in her statement that “the defense budget has nearly tripled over the last two years, and the Ministry of Finance has committed and remains committed to all agreements and pledges, far beyond the original frameworks approved by the Knesset.”
She continued: “Exceeding the budget framework is not within the powers of the Ministry of Finance, but rather requires basic legislation from the Knesset and a government decision, and therefore the attempt to throw responsibility at our door is nothing but misleading the public.”
Officials in the Ministry of Finance went further, considering that the dispute was no longer just a technical discussion over the numbers.
They said: “What we see here is not another technical dispute over numbers, but a very serious structural failure. A mechanism of illusory countervailing immunity has emerged here.”
They added: “The leadership of the security establishment is accustomed to thinking that the economic laws and the law book in the State of Israel stop at the Kirya Gate.”
The officials continued: “The numbers tell the opposite story of what they are trying to sell to the public. During the last two years, the Ministry of Finance has almost tripled the defense budget. We raised international credit on difficult market conditions, turned financial markets upside down, and pumped hundreds of billions of shekels directly to the Israeli security and army.”
They stressed that “military successes would not have been achieved without our enormous financial support, but instead of seeing us as a partner in the national effort, there are those who chose to open a media front against us, spread intimidation campaigns and use security as an open check at the expense of the public.”
The officials also criticized what they described as the policy of “imposing facts on the ground,” and said that the security establishment signs huge commitments that go beyond all the frameworks approved by the Knesset by law, and then leaves the government facing difficult choices.
They added: “Independent obligations are being created, and the government is left with an impossible choice: either cut medicines, hospital beds, social care, and roads, or push the economy to the brink, and then to another brink after that.”
The Ministry of Finance accused the security institution of managing “a parallel budget that operates without transparency before the Ministry of Finance, and without basic oversight, with a blind rejection of smart financing solutions and advanced technological models that we put on the table to bring in money from sources that do not fall on the taxpayers.”
Ministry officials warned that continued demands to increase the defense budget without implementing steps to rationalize spending may harm Israel’s ability to finance any future confrontation.
“The easy approach of ‘just bring in more billions from the audience’ is strategic blindness,” they said.
They added: “A budget that does not know how to monitor itself and impose efficiency produces security of lower quality compared to the huge volume of investment in it.”
They warned: “If this behavior does not change, the price will not only be a decline in the standard of living and services provided to the citizen, but rather on a future day of need, when the country actually needs the resources for a broad confrontation, the economic storehouse will simply be empty.”
They continued: “Then the security establishment will discover that the economic system is no longer able to support it, because there will simply be no money, and we will not have the credit capacity to raise more debts.”
This attack comes at a time when the Israeli army had warned, according to the report published this morning, of the repercussions of the financial crisis on readiness.
According to data, the Israeli army disabled tank battalions after it was unable to secure a budget to purchase spare parts. It is also suffering from a shortage of hundreds of Hummer vehicles, which affects its ability to transport soldiers.
The Intelligence Division also had to delete files in order to free up cloud storage space.
In parallel, the security establishment warned that the “Elbit” company may be forced in the coming days to close the production line of “Merkava” tank shells for the Israeli army.
It is expected that the artillery shells production line will be closed next month, while the mortar shells production line will be closed in November.
According to the report, the Israeli army is facing a real crisis on the eve of entering a month described as very sensitive in terms of preparedness and the possibility of renewed fighting with Iran or on other fronts.
Thus, the dispute over the budget was no longer just a debate between two institutions, but rather turned into a confrontation related to a broader question: How does Israel balance financing military readiness today, and maintaining an economic capacity that will enable it to fight the next war if it comes?
