WHY THIS DECISION IS SO IMPORTANT

The main reason is that the core of this decision is an adjustment to public budgeting mechanisms. This is not a decision that increases a particular budget to close gaps temporarily, on a one-time basis. Rather, this decision determines that 20 different budget mechanisms, some of which are significant, will allocate budgets to Arab citizens according to their proportion in the overall population. These include budget mechanisms in fields such as infrastructure, employment and industry, transportation, some components of the educational budget, housing and others. In addition, affirmative action – of up to 30 per cent – will be taken in order to compensate for the discrimination that has existed until now.

Out of all of the investments in infrastructure in Israel (with the exception of metropolitan areas) the government will allocate 40 per cent for road infrastructure development in Arab communities; 20 per cent of the informal education budget will be allocated to Arab citizens (to be precise, according to their total number in the population); at least 25 per cent of the construction budget for new day care centres will be allocated to Arab communities; 42.5 per cent of the budget for industrial parks will be allocated to industrial parks that yields income to Arab communities; and 40 per cent of the budget of the Ministry for Development of the Negev and the Galilee Periphery will be allocated to the Arab society; and there are many other examples.
The process of correcting budgetary mechanisms is the high road towards equality. Merely increasing external funds that barely close any gaps, while the regular budget mechanism continues to discriminate, and even leads to more discrimination, is simply not the way to end unequal budgeting.

HOW MUCH MONEY IS BEING ALLOCATED?

It depends on how you count. However, there are two billion NIS (about 500 million USD) that will go almost directly to Arab local authorities. But this is only the small money. The larger amount is the budget that will be allocated to Arab communities following the correction of the budget mechanisms. This is about 10 billion NIS ($2.5 billion dollars). The Ministry of Finance claims that there’s more than that, and in total there are at least 12 billion NIS. This is a very significant amount. Knesset member Ayman Odeh wrote that the plan will close one-sixth of the gaps between the Jewish and Arab citizens. In my opinion this is a pessimistic interpretation, and I believe it will close more than one-third of the gaps.

Read the article in full at Fathom.