My private protest against my government

Due to “the situation”, my spending habits have undergone two major changes.

I gave up a principle I was born into and adopted as an adult: no German products. Sometimes there was no choice, like prescription medication produced there. Or, once work flew me via Frankfurt. I brought a sandwich from home and drank water from a fountain. No, I did not think a cup of airport coffee would leave its mark on the German economy. But each such avoidance was an active moment of remembrance. Now, as so many turn their backs on Israel while it remains supportive, I no longer boycott anything German. Each purchase involves a brief but complex thought process, which includes holocaust, atonement, support. Walking shoes? Every step I take echoes Auschwitz as well as October 7^th and its aftermath.

The second change is a small act of personal protest against my wasteful government: I stopped demanding receipts. In the past when I was asked: “Do you want to pay with VAT or without?”, I would sanctimoniously respond: “With, of course!”. I would then embark on a learned explanation: if everyone would pay all their taxes, we would all pay less; services would improve; what seems like a small loss is in fact an investment in your future and that of your children. Imagine the shocked face of someone who came to fix something. He offered me a discount which would mostly serve him, what on earth does this nudnik want?

I no longer use the word “receipt”. Now, if a vendor asks if I happen to have cash, as he happens to be on the way to the market – why not? Quite possibly, our exchange will not result in income tax, VAT, or payment to national insurance – if the government has unlimited resources to answer every whim of its members, it is not my responsibility to be its tax collector.

The signs were there two years ago, with the formation of the largest government ever. A ministry for heritage and a ministry for tradition? Really? Judicial overhaul, crooked priorities, scorn for the gatekeepers, all these invited corruption and economic deterioration. Then war, shock, and here we are.

When Gideon Sa’ar (who swore to never sit under Netanyahu) left the opposition to become foreign minister, it was obvious to anyone who knows anything about Israeli politics that Zeev Elkin must also become a minister. Structures which had been slowly and inefficiently set up to deal with damage to the North and South, were speedily turned into a ministry, with budgets and staff (albeit within the Ministry of Finance). But wait, do we not have a Ministry for the Development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee? With a minster, budgets and all the trimmings? Well yes, but separate ministries for tradition and heritage, remember? The coalition wants? The coalition gets!

There is no need to elaborate on the ongoing demands of coalition partners and on their costs. It is not necessary to repeat official responses to warnings by international credit rating companies regarding the government’s fiscal irresponsibility. No point being annoyed that a third bodyguard now protects Yair Netanyahu, an adult who allegedly does not work. This bodyguard too must fly to Miami and has to live and eat there. At my expense.

What can I do, other than take it to heart? Write a little. Join protests, knowing that they matter not an iota to the government. And stop asking for receipts, a small step which matters to no one but me. No, I don’t really think that a taxi ride without a meter will make a difference to the economy. It is my small private protest against those who continue to milk a country which was once an economic miracle and whose deterioration is both initiated and ignored by its leaders. If they can use their power to stick a large aggressive hand into all our pockets, why begrudge the humble housepainter and the small storekeeper?