The Knesset of Israel has become accustomed to elected officials who came from the media, but these days the representative who came from Facebook is starring on the government floor.
Avir Kara, the founder of the "Shulmanim" group, bought himself a viable place against the background of the independence protests during the Corona days, closing the first hundred days as deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Office.
During them, he often took elections that from the outside seem to contradict the purpose for which he came to the Knesset.
Now he explains why.
He entered a meeting in his office like a storm, after appearing before the Economics Committee, where he fought what he calls the "beekeepers' cartel" who feared opening the industry to competition by adding hives that would impair the amount of pollen.
A text with cult potential appears in the minutes of the meeting: "I do not remember when the bees functioned for the Histadrut and threatened to strike."
The committee's chairman, MK Michael Bitton, responded sensitively: "You can be a loyal spokesman for the cost of living and small business, but do not underestimate farmers."
"Advanced decay"
This dialogue is perhaps a symbol of the struggles that Kara has been waging since taking office.
Its activities today focus on seeing the overall picture: more regulatory regulation and market opening, fewer demonstrations and grants.
Explain your anger at the milk and honey people.
"What they are claiming in a big way is that if the market is opened up to competition - there is a danger that the bees will compete with each other on the territorial territory," he says cynically.
"No one on the committee understands that. In the US there are pollination services, a beekeeper comes and gives pollination services to agriculture.
"There is no reason to block the import market and raise quotas, if there are children in the country who cannot eat honey because it is too expensive, and there are children who will not eat fruits and vegetables, which is the basis of the base, because it is cheaper to buy puree."
What are you doing to make it not like this?
"The import reform that is included in the budget. It affects every citizen in Israel. That day, Tnuva, which holds 49 percent of the dairy market, explains why opening the dairy market to competition is dangerous for Israelis, but in practice there are no goods on the shelves. The Dairy Council controls."
Less Zionist to bring milk, vegetables and fruits from abroad. Why not strengthen the existing market?
"We are an island country, even today we rely on imports.
We import agricultural equipment, seeds, 90 percent of what we eat here is a product of imports.
The reform will be even better with the consumer.
There is also direct support for agriculture. "
Farmers say it is not enough, water quotas for example are ridiculous in relation to the practical need.
"The argument is legitimate. Farmers also claim that if they open the market to competition they will be harmed. But when there is indirect support, the consumer pays for it in the marketing chains."
Kara defines himself as a "freak of economics" and in conversation with him one gets the feeling that he is a kind of finance minister of the area, and there is no issue to be asked about and not know how to answer in a detailed and accessible way. The knowledge of the small details he attributes to the long personal route that began as a child, when he received a lesson from his mother in negotiations, and went to apply with his twin brother - in marketing Chico and Dico shows for friends' birthdays. Flowers: "I knew that when a car stops you wrap it in a bouquet and there is no situation in which it travels without it. At the age of 17, each of us had some deviations in Jerusalem. Half of the school worked for us. "Since then I have been mainly interested in income tax, VAT, exports, imports. This is my world."
In 2019, the Facebook group "I'm Shulman" was founded by Kara and his friends, whose intense protests, the eruption of the corona and tens of thousands of supporters - made it a registered organization within a year.
At the forefront was activity with the National Insurance Institute, which led to a committee examining the rights of the self-employed.
The page currently has 210,000 active members and followers, but Deputy Minister Kara's position papers at the top of the page do not diminish expressions of dissatisfaction on the part of many followers.
"This is the group that from day one has the most anti-establishment criticism and writing. Do not delete. What you do not see in our group are curses, because we filter."
Kara received record returns when he managed to abolish the decree to install the fuel in independent vehicles, after the income tax had already announced it to the public.
The most popular topic is why you voted against unemployment benefits for the self-employed. It was your core theme.
"This law is not good for the self-employed. There are sections that people do not know, for example, the self-employed person's commitment not to engage in a profession if he falls into the unemployed definition. A serious offer will soon be made for the self-employed "If he does not want to, then this is the war. There is no country in the world that allows unemployment benefits for the self-employed. Only Ireland, and there the payment for this tax is very high."
Why did you vote against raising the salaries of soldiers in the regular service?
"This bill was a cynical use by the IDF to strike at the coalition.
Every Wednesday the opposition will raise laws: to build a temple, to take care of the disabled, the soldiers, whatever they have not done for 12 years.
And we will vote against. "
So why are you not raising the salaries of the soldiers?
"Is there a party it was on its platform?"
The increase in pensions for Gantz and Kochavi's permanent staff was also not on the agenda of any party.
"I was very opposed to these pensions. We need to take care of conscripts. There is inequality in carrying the common burden, and I think we need to look at the issue in depth, because maybe it's right to raise the minimum wage or another high wage, we need to do research." "To pass this proposal, they would do it in the usual way. There is an orderly process. They come to the coalition chairman, there are negotiations. The style of discourse seen in the plenum is not the norm. Politics should not reach such a state, it is an advanced decay of a system."
What causes it?
"From the discourse of 'Only Bibi' and 'Only not Bibi'. I have experienced this in the past, when every time I spoke on a particular issue such as business licensing or abandonment of the self-employed - I was judged by the tone of my words and not by the essence. .
Demonstration of business owners in Tel Aviv, 2020, Photo: Yehoshua Yosef
"Ineffective mechanism"
As part of the budget, Kara's greatest achievement is the establishment of the Israeli Regulatory Authority. "When you want to start a business today there are draconian instructions that are not related to the essence, like separate showers for men and women when you just want to make croissants, and like a ban on using a picture of the frog Kermit if you are a veterinarian.
" Or out, so when you want to open a bar you are told by the municipality: 'It is better that you apply for a license to open a restaurant'. I wrote the new regulations together with the supervisors, who themselves understand that business owners must be facilitated. In addition, we eliminated the aggravation of the Israeli standard. To this day, Europe must comply with the Israeli cosmetics license standard, which is tightened wherever possible. I turned the protest into the government's economic policy. "
Part of the protest was because of the corona grants, there is dissatisfaction with the grant repayment segment.
"One has to remember where it started. A year and a half ago there were clauses that made eligibility difficult. I went down to the small details. The Treasury and the government - then there was no government at all - issued a memorandum, we put pressure, I negotiated with the Treasury.
Of the approximately 70,000 eligible, they have become half a million. "
And now 36,000 of them are required to return tens of thousands of shekels to the state.
"Why should they return? If they met the criteria they should not return."
The criteria that you also co-designed, for example, state that if in one month you had a loss of 25% and in another of 75% but the grant came in for the month of 25%, it does not accrue.
"The criteria were transparent and clear. Do you remember the press conference, where Bibi told Eran Yaakov, director of the Tax Authority, that the money should go in within 48 hours? I demonstrated on this and demanded that a self-employed person declare and accept immediately. To do. There was a summary. "
But the corona continues, many businesses are still in decline, there are no new grants and the self-employed have nothing to return.
"We are committed to organizing a growth basket for the self-employed after the Corona, we are working on it. As for the grants themselves - out of 36,000 people, many have even gone up in their income cycles, the problem is really with the people whose business has been hurt.
Wide layout? It's the same amount of money and these are their kids' sandwiches.
"Yeah, but it's also your money and that of other people and their children who will pay for it."
But the self-employed here are literally taking money out of their pockets.
"Everyone feels it in their pocket, is there anyone who does not? There are independents who think the state should give them everything and believe that everything is the responsibility of the state. I am not a populist. I say things will go as they are. I know people who were hurt and did not apply for help, even though we also helped them with food, only because they were afraid they would eventually have to give back. They should not have been taken in the first place. "
What about the remaining 80 percent?
"If we check exactly, it's not 80 percent either. There's a law. What can be done? It should be looked at as a long-term interest-free loan. I agree that this should be addressed. But abolish all the criteria? The State of Israel does not have a tree of money. I am on both sides of the barricade. There is no such thing as 'the state'. The state depends on small and large business owners, and at the end of the day "Taxes will go up here. Every shekel the state gives you - it takes ten from you elsewhere, I understood that when I saw that 90 percent of the money that self-employed people set aside for Social Security does not go back to them."
Self-employed people also spend money on accountants and tax consultants.
"I do not recommend anyone to develop financially without excellent professionals. You see today that 70 percent of the problems of the self-employed are themselves, it is not related to the system, it is the motivation, you need to know how to take an idea and execute it. "But even here, I oppose coercion."
Why really force self-employed social security? Let them choose where to insure themselves.
"Social Security is a tax, it is a mechanism that cannot be effective. In the long run, we need to combine VAT, income tax and social security, and then we will reduce it."
Why in the long run?
"Since 1953, nothing has changed, an adjustment must be made to the new world. The Histadrut is involved in this, Israel is not a country with a workers 'organization but a workers' organization with a state. This is a big political event. "
In the long run, Kara intends to destroy the Histadrut, and in preparation, bills were submitted regarding freedom of association and a joint burden - those who earn three times as much will have to reduce their salaries by 7.3% ("Yes, MKs too"). The home of the Histadrut and the committees today is in the Likud. "This is Mapai 2021. The fire committee is headed by David Amsalem, IAI is Haim Katz, the Airports and Ports Authority is Pinchas Idan from the Likud Center, there is no one in the Labor Party today. Miri Regev's horizon is also in the Histadrut."
So now is your chance to dismantle, when working in a coalition.
"My ambition is to balance the forces. Not the dismantling."