According to the study conducted by the Taub Center, 35 percent of Israelis do not use heating or air conditioning in their homes because of financial difficulty; 40 percent avoid dental care and 15 percent don't buy medicine.
An October report also showed that over one third of Israelis are at risk of falling below the poverty line, almost twice the rate of poverty risk in the European Union, itself plagued by a financial crisis.
Momi Dahan, an official at Hebrew University in al-Quds (Jerusalem), said that the high poverty rate is due to the regime’s constant cuts in welfare benefits over the past 30 years.
He added that the 2013 Israeli austerity budget “continues the current policy of cutting welfare spending, mainly through cuts in children benefits, which now became even lower.”
Many Israelis have been migrating in recent months to Germany and the United States. It is said that the Israelis are leaving the occupied land on economic grounds.
High taxes and low salaries have had adverse effects on the lives of Israelis, specifically the middle class, in recent years.
Discontented Israelis almost regularly take to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest against Tel Aviv’s economic plans and the painful austerity measures, which would raise income and value-added taxes and cut welfare benefits.
NTJ/BA