Small and medium-sized businesses account for more than half of the contribution to the Israeli economy, yet this week they were left helpless in the face of the Business Forum's decision to close a significant portion of the shopping centers.
Even businessman Rami Levy, who has eight branches only in the BIG chain, did not answer the phone. When he tried to open the branches against their opinion, they cut off his electricity. But while Levy went to the media and called the forced shutdown an illegal and dictatorial move, the other business owners were unequivocally instructed to remain silent.
It's been a long time since the self-employed public has made its voice heard. Then, at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, it seemed that the self-employed were at the forefront of the struggle against the Netanyahu government's lockdown policy. The first demonstrations they organized, under the title "Struggle for Bread," were masses. They still demanded unemployment benefits and monopoly dismantling, until dominant groups like Cryme Ministry and the Black Flags marginalized them.
The leaders of these and other movements, former senior civil servants, were not harmed by the coronavirus crisis and even leveraged opportunities and strengthened economically. Thus, the centenarians took control of the protest of the independents, and the provision of the infrastructure and resources they so desperately needed was directly conditioned on full support for the ideology of "just not Bibi."
The self-employed public served as an ornament in the Balfour protests because it has no real power. Throughout the generations, the State of Israel has placed small businesses at the bottom of the business sector ladder, preferring to invest its resources in the public sector, large businesses and specific industries such as high-tech. This is despite the fact that it is small businesses that keep capital and profits within the country. Centers like BIG opened in peripheral areas after receiving incentives from the state. Residents of the periphery have become store owners and franchisees, as well as loyal customers who regularly visit shopping complexes.
Small businesses remain in the cycle of survival. According to data from the Knesset Research Institute from 2017, about half of small and medium-sized businesses close after three years. Many of them lack the ability to organize or organize that would significantly improve their situation. In 2019, the Crafts and Industry Association published data showing that only 7 per cent of self-employed workers are in the upper middle class, and only 4 per cent are in the upper class.
The gap is not self-evident. A superficial look at the data sheds light on years of abandonment by the state. As of today, the self-employed are still not entitled to unemployment benefits, sick pay, maternity allowance, reserve benefits, and more. While in the public service, for example, a person can retire for another career at a relatively young age and receive even double pensions - the pension of the self-employed began to be dealt with only a few years ago. This is one of the reasons why a very high percentage of them continue to work well past the age of 70. In relation to this, the tax burden is very heavy (high business taxes, National Insurance, income tax, etc.), and is still one of the main reasons for the closure of small businesses.
The situation of the self-employed and small businesses in Israel is another layer to the systemic inequality in the country, which, as always, also has color. To this day, the self-employed and small businesses are comprised overwhelmingly of Mizrahim and Arabs, and a significant portion of them are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The division is clear: in November 2011, the Adva Center found that in the fields of mechanics, construction, sales, and drivers, the majority are Mizrahi and Arab, in cosmetics and literature the majority are Mizrahi and Russian-speaking women, and in the field of legal services, mainly Ashkenazim.
As in the Kaplan protests, the protests of the self-employed at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis were conspicuous by the absence of Mizrahim, Arabs, and Haredim, even though they were forced to close their businesses as a result of the crisis. Even today, the protest bears in vain the cry of the weakened, while erasing their existence and harming them mostly. The voice of the self-employed was silenced this week (again) by the power of money.
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