On video: The government approved the state budget for 2024 15.01.2024/Video (upload): Omer Miron / L.A.M., Sound: Ben Peretz / L.A.M.
After a hundred days at the northern border, Captain Alex Kushnir was released from reserve service and returned home - to his wife, daughter and business in Ashkelon.
The transition from combat mode to citizenship was not easy.
For three days he tried to unload the case from the army and restore him to fitness, so that he could jump again as soon as he was called, and he did not succeed.
He has no idea why, after all, there were not the difficult scenes he experienced in the second intifada, until he forced himself to carry out the relatively simple task.
He talks about a kind of fog in his head that accompanies him, the difficulty of coming back to reality, and about the fighters he met there, the salt of the land, among them those who flew from abroad to be on the front line, who felt frustrated by the IDF's defensive battle against Hezbollah, ready to receive the order to "attack" "She didn't come.
A war of existence that turned into a run on the lines.
"I had sporadic encounters with reality, every time I opened the phone," says the MK and the former chairman of the finance committee from "Israel Beitno", who has been outside the Knesset for more than a year and observes what is happening in it and the committee as an outside observer, as an ordinary citizen, position which he hugs with both hands.
"I saw from the front how slowly the conversation is starting to go back, people are in a campaign to remove responsibility and a political campaign. I can't understand how there is a united people here and politicians who don't understand that we are not on October 6."
Hezbollah's rocket launch at the Mount Hermon post.
"The relinquishment of sovereignty began when Hezbollah built tents on Mount Dov"/documentation on social networks according to Section 27 A of the Copyright Law, Shlomi news from the field
This time the people will dictate the tone to the politicians, and not let them lose their temper?
"The people are trying and are not so successful. The officers in the army and the security services will take responsibility and hand over the keys at the end of the war. We all grew up in the 1st military base, our brains were burned with the sense of responsibility and what personal and systemic failure is.
Why isn't one politician willing to take this small step and say, this is also my responsibility.
He's not the only one responsible, but it happened on his watch.
"One of the conclusions is that the division of October 6 is an artificial division. I talked to people from all political spectrums, and as a former MK I trigger such conversations.
The debates were in different tones and at a different volume.
"I am lucky that I fought this war with a weapon and not in the Knesset. And it is not only the Knesset, but people who influence public opinion. Not only the politicians, also those who sit in the studios, with the discourse of 'them and us'. I heard Tali Gottlieb and felt sick. This Must be a thing of the past.
"On the other hand, civil society is something amazing, leave aside the wholehearted donations, I'm talking about the attitude, the warmth.
Do you know that the Aroma branch at Kash Junction has not taken payment from soldiers since the beginning of the war?
I have no idea where they get the money from, but it has become an amazing refreshment point.
Apart from that, we were put on fire, books came to book soldiers at intersections, a feeling that the whole nation is with you."
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Kushnir as Chairman of the Finance Committee. "We approved 2 billion for coalition funds, and the current government approved 14 billion"/Noam Moshkowitz spokeswoman of the Knesset
A gun and a dog
Like many shocked Israeli citizens, Kushnir also woke up on the morning of October 7 to non-stop alarms.
All the members of the household, plus the dog and the two cats entered the MMD. "A week before, they reached an agreement on increasing the quota of workers from Gaza and it seems that things have settled down.
With every phone call I received I realized something more significant was happening.
I was in the Shin Bet for ten years, I asked friends there what was going on. At half past one one of them said, there are 200 dead. It sounded like a terrible disaster at the time.
"We heard there were terrorists in Ashkelon, so I went for a walk with the dog with a gun drawn and cocked.
Before I was appointed director general of the Ministry of Absorption, I was in a very sensitive unit, and they didn't want a director general of a government ministry or a MK there, so they cut me off. I felt I couldn't sit at home, and I wasn't assigned. I asked to be recruited. I was a week late, during which I helped aid organizations collect donations, equipment and emergency lighting, mainly for the elderly in a public way, because there were many power outages, and then I received the long-awaited order.
"I was happy and I didn't ask too many questions.
I was an officer in the PAK of the deputy commander of the brigade, Shaoli Sankar, a resident of Yad Mordechai, who serves as the secretary of Kibbutz Reim. On October 7, he had to make a decision, whether to stay with the family in the kibbutz or go to the north, and he did not hesitate. We were in charge of Ramim Ridge, Menara And Margaliot was my home. And I have many open questions, which if I get to the appropriate forums, I will ask them, not here.
"We accomplished the tasks.
Receives an order and executes.
And in the test of the result, as the security strip matured - then it was in the enemy's territory, this time we were in our own territory with empty kibbutzim.
At night there are porcupines, wild boars, jackals, very painful images.
Have we lost the roll?
Even before the war, when Hezbollah built two tents on Mount Dov, the surrender of sovereignty began.
"I was in the reserves for 100 days and I can't look the evacuees in the eyes. They had to return to their homes, which means we should have already gone to war. We have no right to judge the enemy by his intentions, but by his capabilities, and Hezbollah's capabilities are very large. They have invested billions in the For 100,000 missiles that threaten the State of Israel and will not rust.
"When I went to the after-hours and saw that life was back on track, I was happy, because this is our job.
But our job is to enable all citizens to have a normal life.
I don't know when we will have another chance like this.
We did not carry out the strategic task of maintaining a normal life in the north, and this is a sour feeling of those who have just been released from there.
"In the beginning, we were sure that it would happen soon. As time passed, we realized that it would happen. I am neither in the General Staff nor in the Cabinet, and I do not know what the considerations are.
But for 75 years we have been trying to maintain our sovereignty and unfortunately we are not doing it in the north.
If we leave the situation like this, it's like putting a Band-Aid, and in a month we'll start again."
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Disappointment at the ballot box
In the last election cycle, Kushnir was placed seventh on the list of "Israel Beitno" and after an impressive term in the finance committee, when he stepped into the shoes of the now legendary chairman, Moshe Gafni, the party received only six mandates and he was left out.
"It was a disappointment," he says, "I thought that I have other things to do in the Knesset.
As chairman of the finance committee I learned a lot, I had plans and suddenly everything stopped in the middle. This is the nature of politics. Sometimes you are elected and sometimes you are not.
"I opened a licensed dealer, I went back to my roots and started giving financial advice.
Before entering politics, I was the vice president of a chain of gas stations abroad and managed a non-bank financing company.
As a freelancer you encounter all kinds of challenges and the connection to things from the other side is very healthy.
As a MK I tried to be connected to business and the business sector, but it's not like living it in reality. Maybe term limits for MKs is not a bad thing.
We also opened a company that promotes projects for the benefit of the new immigrants who arrived from Ukraine and then the war broke out."
But even before that, Kushnir experienced the attempt to move the legal reform from the streets. As an ordinary protester. Protection and powers.
What they tried to do here is the same thing.
The Knesset does what the government says, exactly the opposite of what should be.
The attempt to do this to the High Court also gave me and my friends flashbacks. I was active in demonstrations and forums, but it seems to me now that I am talking about distant history."
When we talk about the current finance committee, he says that it has become a servant of the government, "an arm for transferring funds to the whims of the government."
Then I remind him that even in the change government, in which he was a member, he was the chairman of the committee that approved coalition funds in the billions. "2 billion, and they have 14 billion.
And if you check what our money went to and what theirs went to, the gap is big.
"I try not to return to the discourse before the war. If we are a country that desires life, we must connect. But there is one sector here whose leaders prevent it from connecting. Those who do not study core studies cannot connect. Our army is too small and we must have our ultra-Orthodox brothers with us." .
You said, "Our ultra-Orthodox brothers."
It's a bit of an event.
"I had a dialogue with the ultra-Orthodox even before that and they wanted to integrate. They need to understand that we all have no choice. They are our brothers and there is a common battle here that we must win."
This may be the place to strike at sin.
Your discourse against the ultra-orthodox in the party was divisive.
"Before and after October 7, we live in two separate countries. I have a lot of criticism for the government, but there are ministers, especially from Shas, who are doing an amazing job.
When the government fulfills its role and works for the public, it doesn't matter which party they come from.
When I see the budget they want to pass, I have darkness in my eyes."
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I am amazed
"We received a huge deficit from the Netanyahu government and we returned a large surplus."
He continues, "The war costs a lot of money and to finance it you need a lot of money. There are three ways to do it: raise taxes, take on a bigger debt, the ones who will have to pay it are us, or dramatically reduce government spending. When I see that no attempts are even made To cut the government, I am amazed, because I was the CEO of a government ministry.
"I don't see any minister who sits in his office, revises the budget and says, I can give up such and such money, without harming his function. If you want to take a recovery day from the employees for the benefit of the war effort, give something too. And that's not the end yet. When the discussions in the finance committee on the budget begin, the expenditure will increase, because the ministers will press and there will be Knesset members who will give conditions. I fear that the decrees on the public will be large.
"There are economists who say that we will probably enter a recession and there are signs of that.
I don't see in the budget any thinking about growth engines and there are thousands of amazing ideas.
To analyze the war we must have a strong economy, because what will we fight with?
With rocket launchers."
So you have to go to the elections.
"Absolutely not.
The government and its leader need to be replaced, but within the current Knesset.
It has to come from within.
The price of the election campaign is deadly.
There are good people in the Knesset, who have the good of the country before their eyes.
We can't survive half a year of 'them and us' again."
That means you're out.
"Then I'm out.
It's not interesting.
I grew up in a Soviet education and I'm good at rejecting stories.
Politics for me is a tool to change reality.
If necessary, I will wait.
The most important thing to me is that we don't lose the country."
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