In order to fund haredi (ultra-Orthodox) institutions and coalition parties, the government cut NIS 217 million from the 2025 budget for the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority, directly impacting fire and rescue efforts on Wednesday and Thursday amid one of the largest fire emergencies Israel has seen.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distributed five billion shekels for various political and coalition-related needs, while also cutting funds from healthcare, education, and welfare and raising VAT by 1%.
The 2025 budget provided 1.27 billion shekels for yeshivas; NIS 277 million for food vouchers demanded by Aryeh Deri for the needy; NIS 94 million for the Settlement Division; NIS 92 million to support educational programs in Talmudei Torah; NIS 87 million to strengthen Jewish identity; NIS 70 million to support haredi Jewish culture; and NIS 60 million to religious institutions intended for students from abroad—in other words, money for haredi students who study entirely outside of Israel.
The opposition’s Finance Committee coordinator, MK Vladimir Beliak, said: “The budget for the Fire and Rescue Authority tells the whole story of what happened [on Wednesday] on Highway 1 and in the Jerusalem Hills. The 2025 budget was approved with a cut of NIS 217 million, while more and more money was diverted for political and sectoral purposes. The final Fire and Rescue Authority budget after adjustments for 2024 was NIS 1.99 billion. The 2025 budget: NIS 1.77 billion. This government is endangering citizens’ lives to ensure its own survival.”
The funds so desperately needed by firefighters—for new equipment, firefighting helicopters, and all the tools that could have helped them gain faster control over the blaze—were cut. Slashed.
Netanyahu was aware of unpreparedness
Netanyahu was well aware of the dangers. In 2010, during Hanukkah, a massive wildfire broke out in the Carmel region, known as the Carmel Disaster. The fire lasted four days, from December 2 to December 6. Forty-four people were killed, 17,000 were evacuated from their homes, and 25,000 dunams were burned.
The State Comptroller, District Court Judge Micha Lindenstrauss, published a scathing report on the disaster. Regarding Netanyahu, he wrote: “The prime minister bears partial responsibility for the deficiencies and failures that emerged as a result of the fire. For a long period, complaints and disputes between government ministries were brought to his desk, and he was required to make decisions on them. However, for far too long, the prime minister refrained from using his influence to resolve these disputes—a delay that had serious implications for the state of preparedness of the firefighting system on the eve of the fire.”
The Israeli Climate Forum sent an urgent letter to Netanyahu in early March, warning of the urgent need for emergency preparedness in light of the winter drought data, especially concerning the risk of wildfires. Opposition MKs also tried in recent months to initiate discussions in Knesset committees on wildfire preparedness. Not a single discussion took place.
In 2018, eight years after the devastating Carmel disaster, a previous MK, Yoel Hasson, submitted a report to the Internal Affairs Committee warning that Israel was unprepared for wildfires, certainly not on the scale of the current fire in the Jerusalem area. He said the country wasn’t even prepared for “a fire in a building.” He also warned that the lessons of the Carmel disaster had not been implemented. Absolutely nothing was done about this warning.
Netanyahu did not say a word about it, but the blame game against everyone else has already begun and is expected to intensify in the coming days.
His exiled son, Yair Netanyahu, from his residence in Miami, already declared: “The Shin Bet has been hijacked by a Kaplanist and there’s no one left to protect the Jewish people—even from an Arab arson terror attack.” In other words, Ronen Bar is to blame.
Moti Castel, Channel 14 journalist and close associate of the Prime Minister’s Office, has already tweeted the following: “Sources in the government: ‘Another failure by Ronen Bar, who focuses on stopping Jews instead of thwarting nationalistic arsons.’”
You can count on Netanyahu and the chorus of loyal voices around him to assign more blame for the fire. You’ll hear all about it soon. Everyone will be blamed—except one person: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.