2018: When Greed Meets Need

George Ochenski

When Donald Trump won the presidency, pundits predicted he would “grow into the office.” The hope was that he would realize the enormous responsibilities that come with the leadership of a powerful and wealthy nation, put aside his overwhelming need for self-gratification, and exhibit the gravitas of a world leader. But that didn’t happen.

So in 2018, expect those who kindly cut him slack in 2017 to realize the only way to deal with Trump is to fight back hard in the New Year with teeth and claws bared.

The simple but sad truth is that President Trump has very little experience dealing with the wide spectrum of our population. Being a billionaire, when he needs something done, he hires people from the “working class” to do it — and sometimes he even pays them what he owes them. But as far as socializing with or understanding the travails of lower or middle-class citizens, that’s not part of his life.

As disgraced heiress Leona Helmsley once said before being prosecuted for not paying her contractors and federal taxes: “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.” And sure enough, if you have the money to hire the best accountants and lawyers in the nation, they will pry the tax loopholes open big enough to drive trucks full of money through without paying a dime to the government.

Being so vastly displaced from the plight of the “common man” makes it difficult to identify with the realities those “little people” face on a daily basis. Thus, if you think you have to defund the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) so you can give enormous tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, you can do it without experiencing the impacts of your actions.

But as Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France, found out when told the common people couldn’t afford bread — and supposedly haughtily replied, “Let them eat cake” — there can be real consequences for ignoring the needs of the many for the greed of the few. In her case, the lesson ended with her head in a bucket on the wrong side of a guillotine blade during the French Revolution. She is not alone in this regard and history is replete with examples of kings, queens and czars who faced the wrath of a populace preyed upon by unscrupulous leaders.

It’s not likely that 2018 will see any guillotines; there is little doubt that the majority of the population that currently disapprove of Trump will remain peaceful while their environment is destroyed, their public lands handed over to extractive industries, the social safety net is shredded, and the nation’s Treasury is looted to benefit corporations and the already wealthy.

For one thing, it’s a mid-term election year, which is when political parties that hold the presidency and majorities in Congress traditionally suffer their greatest losses. That bodes ill for Republicans and Trump in the political arena. Is it possible the Republicans could lose their majorities in Congress? Absolutely. And if they do, Trump’s destructive “agenda” will grind to a halt.

The political arena is not the only place for a disgruntled populace to rise up, however. Expect the protests that already plague Trump to intensify and broaden. With the very pillars of our democracy at stake, Trump will find out that endless cruel attacks on individuals, the media and social civility have consequences. 2018 is likely to be the year when “greed meets need” and our narcissistic president finally faces the realities of his misplaced priorities and policies.

Britain’s Dirty War in Ireland, Revisited

John Wight

Britain’s dirty war in Ireland, waged throughout the course of the Troubles, marked an especial low point in the country’s sordid colonial history. It is a history that has come back into focus with the explosive revelations contained in declassified state documents from the 1980s, made public by the Government of the Irish Republic in Dublin under the country’s thirty-year rule governing the release of state documents.

Said papers confirm that in 1987 the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), one of the oldest and most notorious of the various loyalist/Protestant paramilitary organizations that were engaged in sectarian violence in the province during the Troubles, wrote to the then Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey in Dublin, informing him that in 1985 they were approached by Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, with a request to assassinate him.

We learn that in the letter the UVF told Mr Haughey, “In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) and based in Lisburn, AlexJones was his supposed name. He asked us to execute you.” The letter subsequently goes on to allege that Britain’s MI5 supplied the group with information such as pictures of Haughey’s home, his private yacht, and details of the vehicles he travelled in.

The UVF refused follow through on MI5’s request, telling Mr Haughey, “We have no love for you but we are not going to carry out work for the Dirty Tricks Department of the British.”

Charles Haughey, it should be pointed out, was head of the Irish government as leader of the country’s Fianna Fail (the Republican Party). He was a strong supporter of a united Ireland and as such enjoyed a testy relationship with his UK counterpart, Margaret Thatcher, who took a notoriously hard-line stance against Irish republicanism, most infamously with her refusal to countenance any compromise during the 1981 hunger strike by republican prisoners in the Maze Prison just outside Belfast.

Despite entreaties from political and religious leaders from across the world, Thatcher allowed ten of the men on hunger strike to die over the removal of their political status by the previous UK Labour government in 1976.

As with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), whose war against British rule in the partitioned six counties of Ireland was launched after decades of structural discrimination suffered by Catholics when it came to housing, employment, education and political representation, the UVF viewed themselves as being engaged in a legitimate struggle; determined, along with the wider unionist Protestant community, to remain under British rule and quash with violence the Irish republican movement.

This was an objective they shared with the British political establishment, illustrated in the deployment of a considerable number of British troops and security personnel to the province to combat the IRA and other splinter republican paramilitary organizations.

Of the various loyalist terrorist groups that were active in the conflict, the UVF is known to have been responsible for 500 murders. However lest anyone make the mistake of romanticizing the group or its paramilitary violence, much of their time was spent engaged in criminality, specifically with regard to the drugs trade in Protestant communities, in which the group is known to have been a major player.

On the issue of collusion between British state security and intelligence services and loyalist terror groups, this has long been an open secret. Among the most grievous cases where such collusion is alleged involved the murder of two high profile lawyers in the province who were known to have had republication sympathies, Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane.

Campaigners have fought a long battle to force the British government to admit there was state collusion in their murders but thus far without success.

Interestingly, in the declassified UVF letter the group claims that 17 of its victims were killed with the aid of information supplied by British intelligence. They also claim that MI5 planned to damage the Ireland’s agricultural economy with the introduction of livestock diseases such as Foot and Mouth, Swine Fever, and Fowl Pest.

For those who have studied Britain’s colonial history in any depth, its brutality in the face of national liberation movements, this story will not come as any surprise. The fact it involves on this occasion a plan to have the prime minister of a sovereign state murdered does, however, expose as a sham the oft-repeated claims of the British political establishment that London stands as a pillar of democracy, human rights, and international law. In truth the British State is dripping the blood of men, women, and children from Ireland to Iraq, Libya to Malaya, and many more places in between.

For example, in his history of the British Empire, ‘The Blood Never Dried’, John Newsinger reminds us that in India, during the Empire, Britain “threw aside the mask of civilization and engaged in a war of such ferocity that a reasonable parallel can be seen in our times with the Nazi occupation of Europe.”

Ireland occupies a unique place in Britain’s colonial history in that it was the country’s first colony and remains one of its last – at least, that is, those six partitioned counties in the north of the island. The Republic of Ireland, made up of the remaining 26 counties of the island which lies of Britain’s west coast, were liberated after Irish rebels waged an effective insurgency between 1919 and 1921, which forced the British government to the negotiating table in London.

The catalyst for Ireland’s War of Independence was the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, which was quashed by overwhelming military force after six days. One of the leaders of the rising, executed by the British afterwards, was James Connolly. Years before Northern Ireland came into being as a result of the aforementioned negotiations in London, Connolly predicted that partition would lead to a “carnival of reaction.”

British collusion with loyalist terror gangs in murder and mayhem over a half a century later proved him right.

Malnutrition Ravages India’s Children

Moin Qazi

We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today.

― Gabriela Mistral

A recent alarming signal in the health profile of Indian children went largely unnoticed. India, whose growing prosperity has hardly made any significant dent into chronic malnutrition of children, slipped three places to 100 in the 2017 Global Hunger Index (GHI) of 119 countries in which it has consistently ranked low .India has historically fared poorly on child nutrition indicators and has been plagued by periodical waves of malnutrition-related deaths in tribal areas.

With 17% of the world’s population, India is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry.  A population almost the size of Uttar Pradesh remains hungry every day. It is a tragic irony that while it has made impressive gains in foodgrains production this has not been p[parlayed into any significant improvement in elimination of  hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, in its report titled, ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2017’ depicted a grim picture — a staggering 190.7 million people or 14.5 per cent of the population is undernourished in India. .The dismal health of Indian women and children is primarily due to lack of food security. Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, economic and social access to safe, adequate and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs for a healthy and active life. Malnutrition affects women more than it affects men due to the specific nutrition needs of women during adolescence, pregnancy, and lactation;

India is the leading producer of milk with the largest buffalo population, the second largest producer of vegetables, fruits, and fish. Despite this, it has failed to vanquish hunger. Nearly one-third of adults in the country have a Body Mass Index (BMI) below normal just because they do not have enough food to eat.

Of all Indian children under five,

• one in three (35.7%) is underweight(low weight for age),
• one in three (38.4%) is stunted (low height for age);
• one in five (21%) is wasted(low weight for height) and
• only every second child exclusively breastfed for the first six months.
• 3,000 children die every day from poor diet-related illness;
• fewer than half of all Indian children start nursing within their first 24 hours, although breast-milk helps to protect infants against infection.

This is worse than many sub-Saharan countries. Overall, India accounts for more than three out of every 10 stunted children globally. This is largely owing to a lack of quality food, poor care and feeding practices and inadequate water, sanitation, and health services in the country. The chronic impact of stunting on lifelong learning and adult productivity, in addition to increased disease susceptibility, is well known. Going by NFHS-4 results, it appears that 40% of our future workforce will be unable to achieve their full physical and cognitive potential.

Many children are born to anemic and malnourished teenage mothers. Indeed, 33.6% of Indian women are chronically undernourished and 55% are anaemic. The loss of gross domestic product to anaemia was estimated at $22.64 billion (Rs 1.50 lakh crore) in 2016, more than three times the health budget of the country for 2017-18.

According to the India State-level Disease Burden Report and Technical Paper”,  the disease burden due to malnutrition dropped in India substantially since 1990bt but was still responsible for 15 per cent of the total disease burden in 2016  and was 12 times higher than in China.

The well known development economist Jean Dreze argues that the most serious nutrition challenge in India is to reach out to children under three years of age: “It is well known that if a child is undernourished by age three, it is very difficult to repair the damage after that.” The costs of failing to do so—both in human and economic and terms—are huge. Pervasive long-term malnutrition erodes the foundations of the economy by destroying the potential of millions of infants. Children stunted on account of malnutrition are estimated to go on to earn an average of 20% less as adults. Many of them will turn out to be morons.

Much less investment is required to maintain adequate nourishment for children than is required to repair broken children. A package of basic measures—including programmes to encourage mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children for up to six months, fortifying basic foods with essential vitamins and minerals and increased cash transfers   targeted at the poorest families—can turn the tide.

India already has two robust national programmes addressing malnutrition—the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) and the National Health Mission—but these do not yet reach enough people. The delivery system is also inadequate and plagued by inefficiency and corruption. Some analysts estimate that 40% of the subsidized food never reaches the intended recipients.

Most child deaths   in India occur from treatable diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and complications at birth. The child may eventually die of a disease, but that disease becomes lethal because the child is malnourished and unable to put up resistance to it .The staff of ICDS places part of the blame of malnutrition on parents being inattentive to the needs of their children, but crushing poverty forces most women to leave their young children at home and work in the fields during the agricultural seasons.

A significant cause of malnutrition is also the deliberate failure of malnourished people to choose nutritious food.  One survey by the economists Duflo and Banerjee has found that, overall, the poor in developing countries had enough money to increase their food spending by as much as 30% but that this money was spent on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals instead.

The good news is that there are bright spots on the horizon. Progress is still slow and the political will patchy but there are signs that a sensible stewardship is emring.. India’s official think tank NITI Aayog has drafted a National Nutrition Strategy that aims to eradicate malnutrition from the country by 2030.With this end in view it has set the following targets:

• To reduce under nutrition in children (0-3 years) by 3% per annum until 2022.
• To reduce the prevalence of anemia among young children, adolescent girls and women in the reproductive age group (15-49 years) by one-third of the NFHS 4 levels by 2022.

Some other recommendations are for programmes to promote breastfeeding for the first six months after birth, universal access to infant and young child care including ICDS and crèches, provisions to provide bi-annual critical nutrient supplements and programs aimed at de-worming children. In the area of maternal care, the strategy proposes that the government provide nutritional support—in particular, the adequate consumption of iodised salt—to mothers during pregnancy and lactation.  There is also an urgent need of good quality universal free school meals for all primary children.

These policies can reap the desired dividends if the government sets hard coded timelines and maintains stringent monitoring. Good intentions have to be accompanied be accompanied by similar actions on the ground.

Gangs, Race And Melbourne

Binoy Kampmark

Two’s a company; three’s a crowd.  More?  This issue is preoccupying political and policing figures in the city considered by the Economist Intelligence Unit the most liveable in the world, bettering a whole host of other seemingly more appropriate candidates.  So liveable, in fact, that it houses all sorts.

Having repeatedly boasted, self-congratulated and beamed at the idea that Australia is the most multicultural nation on earth, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been less cautious of late.  He has been getting stroppy with the Victorian Government for not doing enough about what he considers Melbourne’s “growing gang violence and lawlessness”.

The straw that broke a very fragile camel’s back involved acts of vandalism in Werribee.  Depending on which news source you referred to, there was a mass riot at an Airbnb property that would have made the Communards proud. Other sources saw more modest damage to cars and rental property.  Everyone took notice of the juvenile expressions of delight from the perpetrators, who scrawled the letters MTS (“Menace to Society”) on walls to leave their little residue of destructive pride.

At the federal level, politicians see the former: mayhem, riotous violence, a loss of control.  Federal minister Greg Hunt has come up with his own assessment: “Gang crime in Victoria is clearly out of control.  We know that African gang crime in some areas in particular is clearly out of control.”  In the tables of political point scoring, Hunt had found a handy, simplifying culprit.

For Hunt, there were no relevant sophisticated sociological principles here, nor matters of economics.  Society was imploding; an African wave of violence had been unleashed.  Nor was it a police issue.  “The failure is not the police but the premier.”

Victorian police have been a touch more tentative, while various African community leaders have been less than confident in the tag of “gang”.  Label and be damned.  “These young thugs, these young criminals,” claimed Acting Commissioner Shane Patton, “they’re not an organised crime group like a Middle Eastern organised crime group or an outlaw motorcycle gang. But they’re behaving like street gangs, so let’s call them that – that’s what they are.”

South Sudanese community leader, Richard Deng, prefers the direct option: engage the estranged; bring in those lost souls from the cold. Fine for Mr Turnbull to speak from a distant pulpit, but come down to Melbourne and see for yourself and cosy up to conversation with local leaders.  “What disappointed me as a community leader is to see a Prime Minister of our country trying to say these are ‘African gangs’ – these are the children of Australia”.

Deng’s message is that of understanding, conciliation, accommodation, the sugary terms that have long ceased to exist in the official speak of Australian law enforcement.  This remains a country keen on promoting its tolerant cosmopolitanism even as it finances gulag processing centres for asylum seekers on tropical islands in developing countries.  Compassion rarely sells.

Foremost in the approach of such figures as Deng it is that of instruction, the pedagogue in action, the elder in sympathy.  “He’s the Prime Minister, he needs to join hands with the State government and police to support these kids.”

Figures such as Ahmed Hassan, director of the outreach group Youth Activating Youth, adds his vote of confidence to ongoing efforts of the Victorian Government, ones that follow the pathway of encouragement and engagement.  Strategies are being implemented through sporting clubs, through schools.  “We need to continue this and it has to come from a federal level where the Prime Minister has to support the State Government initiatives.”

Race, immigration and security are not provinces where Australian leaders have been particularly keen to separate.  Every attack is a political opportunity, enabling markers of identity to be used to bolster the next populist policy.  Reassurance is less enticing than the drum beat of conflict, the stimulant of fear.  Rather than considering matters of structure and influence in terms of why a section of the population might turn to crime, or even more broadly mischief, the superficial will sell.

Matthew Guy, Victoria’s Liberal Opposition Leader, is an adherent to the tedious view that the fist is better than the mind, the prison a better solution than the classroom.  The fact that prisons are ideal schools for crime eludes him.  The Guy formula here is mandatory sentencing for repeat offenders, those involved in home invasions, aggravated car-jackings and armed robberies.

Not that the community leaders are necessary the best panacea for the lost.  Having assumed the authority to speak for alienated youth figures, they can themselves come across as compromised, seeking authority before others in the immigrant hierarchy. Resources, and prestige, are there to be fought over, even as the problem perpetuates.

Nor do they all agree, either.  Nelly Yoa has provided manna from heaven to more reactionary commentators keen to put the kibosh on “African” perpetrators.  As one who mentors the troubled, he feels that the Victorian government has been sluggish and slow on the uptake.  “The State Government has watched this unfold over the past two years.  Nothing has been done.”

Between Deng and Yoa is a yawning chasm.  One claims that community leaders are engaged, their activities approved and backed by the Victorian government. The other insists that the issue has become something of a conference set, an interminable chat show that tanks more than thinks.  “As a Melbournian,” claims Yoa, “I do believe enough is enough.  Action needs to be taken instead of just talking about it.”

But the options are thin, and refusing to involve those involved in matters of violence or misdemeanour adds teeth to their cause, whatever it might be.  Then comes the issue of policing itself, its protocols, its approaches.  As Deng himself explains, “These are young people who like to make a name for themselves to look tough in front of the Victorian police”.  They are far from the only ones in this.

India: Fourteen die in Mumbai fire

Rohantha De Silva

At least 14 people were killed and another 21 injured in a fire that swept through a building housing the “1 Above” rooftop bar-restaurant in Mumbai, Indian’s financial centre, late last week. The tragedy further highlights the indifference of Indian authorities toward safety in public places and factories.

The fire began during the early hours of December 29 in a commercial building in the Kamala Mills compound. The fire department was alerted at around 3 a.m. The compound is home to several corporate offices, high-end pubs and restaurants in an upper-class night-life area.

Eleven of those killed were women celebrating the birthday of 29-year-old Khushboo Mehta Bansali, who was also among the dead. Two US residents, who had re-entered the restaurant in an attempt to rescue their aunt, died in the fire. Officials said all the victims were unable to find an exit and suffocated.

According to reports, the fire started at 1 Above on the top floor and spread to the neighbouring Mojo Bistro. Fueled by bamboo and other flammable materials, such as tarpaulin sheets and artificial flowers in both restaurants, it engulfed the entire building in less than 30 minutes.

Several media outlets, including three national news channels, had offices in the building that were damaged. If the fire had occurred during the day when people were working, the death toll would have been much higher.

While both restaurants had been served with safety violation notices in recent months, the relevant municipal authorities allowed them to continue operating.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of Maharashtra state, where Mumbai is the state capital, immediately ordered Mumbai municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta to conduct an inquiry into who was responsible for the incident.

Given the outcomes of previous official inquiries, the aim of the investigation will be to cover up and exonerate those politically responsible while pinning the blame on a handful of scapegoats. Mehta quickly suspended five Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, and assistant municipal commissioner Prashant Sapkale was transferred.

Fadnavis said the five officers would be charged with criminal offences if they were found guilty of permitting the restaurants to continue operating. “The owner-directors of the rooftop restaurant,” he said, “are facing the charge of culpable homicide.”

1 Above owners—Hitesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijit Manka—issued a statement declaring that “all our premises are well inspected and we have all the requisite permissions.” In India, as in other countries throughout the region, it is not difficult to secure fraudulent certificates by bribing officials.

A Hindustan Times article said the fire raised “concerns over fire-safety norms in the city’s commercial hubs.” In fact, it appears that the fire was a disaster waiting to happen.

BMC officials admitted that the 1 Above restaurant was taken to court on three occasions between May and September for safety violations. Media reports also state that in August, BMC demolished part of a common balcony extension of the two restaurants, and in October, the council raided and confiscated the furniture placed in the balcony. Despite this, the restaurants were allowed to remain open.

The restaurants did not have emergency exits and, according to officials, lacked proper fire safety equipment. Such violations are not accidental but commonplace throughout India. Under India’s pro-market reforms, all safety concerns have been subordinated to profit.

In an attempt to hoodwink the population, India’s BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Anguished by the fire in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families in this hour of grief. I pray that those injured recover quickly.”

The government’s real attitude was expressed by BJP parliamentarian Hema Malini, who declared that the fire was a result of overcrowding in Mumbai and there should be population “restrictions.”

While the blame game continues, the BMC is demolishing “illegal structures” across the city in a desperate attempt to convince residents that it is concerned about public welfare and safety. NDTV reported that over 500 buildings have been destroyed.

Fire disasters are common throughout India. A few weeks ago, on December 18, 12 migrant workers were burned to death when a fire broke out in a snack shop in an industrial area in Saki Naka, Mumbai. While fire fighters eventually brought the blaze under control, only nine of the 21 people inside the shop managed to escape. The remainder were trapped inside the small structure, which collapsed after gas cylinders exploded. Because the victims were poor labourers, the incident attracted little media attention.

One of the worst disasters occurred in April 2016 in the south Indian state of Kerala. Ninety-eight people were killed and over 540 injured after thousands of fireworks exploded in a temple storeroom. Tremors from the explosions were felt a kilometre away. Journalists reported that it looked like a war zone, with temple buildings destroyed and remains of dead bodies scattered everywhere.

After last week’s blaze a December 30 editorial in the Hindu acknowledged that Indian authorities had turned a blind eye to the ongoing disasters. Successive governments, it declared, had “learnt nothing from the Uphaar cinema hall fire in New Delhi in 1997 that killed 59 people” and “orders issued to ensure public safety… remain mostly on paper. It should worry us that the lives of Indians seem to be of little value.”

The truth is that safety measures are grossly inadequate. The current BJP-led administration and the previous Congress governments have failed to improve safety standards, defending an economic and social system that puts private profit before the lives of people. Everything is being done to maximise foreign investment and ensure business profitability.

This situation is not limited to economically backward countries. The loss of 12 lives in a New York apartment building fire, a day before the Mumbai tragedy, demonstrates that the subordination of human life to corporate profit is a universal phenomenon.

Head of Britain’s NHS demands national roll-out of drunk tanks

Julie Hyland 

Simon Stevens, chief executive of the National Health Service, issued a statement in the run-up to the New Year festivities that should have been a cause for national concern.

Stevens denounced record levels of drunkenness that were in danger of transforming the NHS into the “National Hangover Service.”

Those fixated on becoming intoxicated during the holiday season were “frankly selfish,” Stevens said, under conditions in which “ambulance paramedics and A&E nurses,” who were otherwise “pulling out all the stops to care for sick and vulnerable patients,” had to be diverted to “looking after revellers who have overindulged and who just need somewhere to safely sleep it off.”

Stevens suggested that the solution would be to roll-out “drunk tanks” nationally. Alcohol Intoxication Management Services—most often set up in adapted lorries, buses or former cafes—currently exist in 19 major cities. First initiated in Bristol in 2013, they now include Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester and Newcastle and are equipped with wipe-down beds, mops and buckets.

According to NHS England, as reported by the Guardian, an “estimated 12-15 percent of attendances at emergency departments in the UK are due to acute alcohol intoxication,” while around the Christmas festivities as much as “70 percent of attendances can be alcohol-related.”

These are extraordinary figures, which should prompt the question: Why are so many individuals—over a 12-day period—in such an alcohol-associated state that they need emergency admission to hospital?

However, before seeking such an answer it must be stressed that the figures released are being used to legitimise an attack on current, dwindling NHS provision. That is why, to the extent that they received comment, it was whether drunk tanks would only encourage people to become “paralytically drunk.”

The Guardian cited Metropolitan Police Commander Simon Letchford complaining, “What we do not want to do is to create a safety net for people who go out and binge-drink and so they think it is OK because we pick them up at the end of the night. There has to be a consequence for their behaviour. I would certainly look at what more we can do to put that consequence in so that there is a cost for them.”

Commenting in the Guardian, Simon Jenkins said that it was absurd that the cost for festive drunkenness should be borne by the NHS, and that instead a “£50 charge—certainly less than they spent getting drunk—would at least seem reasonable” for those being treated. He suggested that this principle was spread across the “welfare state” so as to apply to “mental health, drink, drugs and homelessness.”

Jenkins opined that the problem was that many patients “are not suffering from illness or injury, but loneliness. They want an appointment with a sympathetic ear.”

The scenario of people becoming so drunk that they require “cleaning up” is what should be of concern.

The UK is one of the most advanced and wealthy countries in the world, but apparently a significant number of its population are so unhappy that they are self-medicating to such an extent that they do not know what they are doing.

Anyone who has spent an evening in any UK city will be familiar with the problem of drunkenness. And this is regularly seized on by the media and reality TV programmes to produce sensationalist coverage centred on embarrassing photographs of drunkenness. Any examination of what drives drinking to excess is of no interest to such sources. All we are told is that the UK has a “binge-drinking culture.” The narrative, as Jenkins suggests, is that the sole problem is the waste of resources on those whose condition is self-inflicted.

Such strictures are, of course, not applied to the banks and the super-rich, who were bailed out to the tune of millions by the taxpayer following the 2008 crash and who have continued to reap extraordinary benefits, due to the attacks on workers’ living standards.

There is a direct relationship between this orgy of financial parasitism and the explosion of self-medication. Those most at risk of alcohol related illnesses—however broadly this is defined—are not irresponsible “youth” overindulging at Christmas. They are overwhelmingly older, in families and at work. And the figures indicate that this exploded in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, which has seen wages and family income plummet to record lows.

According to official statistics on Alcohol England 2017, published by NHS Digital, there were a record 1.1 million “alcohol-related admissions to hospitals in England in 2015/16.”

To put that in context, it was the Blair Labour government that first legislated to relax alcohol laws to allow for extended opening hours.

With the alcohol industry having been given carte blanche, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in 2013 changed statistics on alcohol-related admissions to incorporate “broad” and “narrow” definitions. The outcome is that that any illness that could have a relationship to alcohol is included in the record 1.1 million, no matter how indirect. Therefore, seven out of every ten such admissions are down to conditions partially attributable to alcohol, cancers being the most common type, rather than intoxication.

Some 45 percent under the broad measure and 39 percent under the narrow measure were aged between 55 and 74 years, and 45 and 64 years, respectively. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), however, there has been little overall change in alcohol consumption, which is now at its lowest level since 2005.

While the ONS show a significant decline in alcohol use amongst the young, this partially obscures the fact that this generation is self-medicating by means of other drugs. According to official statistics, hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of drug-related mental and behavioural disorders rose by 6 percent on the previous year. The primary diagnosis of poisoning by illicit drugs rose by 6 percent. This is an increase of 11 percent and 51 percent, respectively, in a decade. About 33 percent of patients are between 25 and 34 years of age.

From a social standpoint, and one that will receive no attention in the #MeToo era, males are the overwhelming victims of alcohol and drug abuse, at nearly three-quarters the total.

Overall, a significant portion of the UK population are self-medicating. Stevens’ statements are not concerned with the social consequences of this. The purpose is to legitimise further health care cuts. If a section of the population is to be “treated” out of hospital—and the demand is for drunk tanks to be privately provided, on the grounds that those placed there brought on their ill-health themselves—where does this stop? Already there is a clamour for the obese to be subject to health sanctions. But what of the marathon runner whose joint injuries can also be attributed to their choice of social recreation?

Behind Stevens’ statement, the reality is that the NHS has been starved of funding through austerity measures to such a degree that it faces collapse.

The NHS in England has cancelled thousands of surgery appointments, so that the British Red Cross has warned of a “humanitarian crisis.”

The prestigious Kings College Hospital in south London has been put in “special measures” due to debt. But according to Sally Gainsbury, senior analyst at the Nuffield Trust think tank, it is the “canary down the coal mine.”

The real squandering of health resources is on private health care. This month it was disclosed that £3.1 billion of health services were privatised over the last year, with the multimillionaire Richard Branson scooping a record £1 billion of NHS contracts through his Virgin Care. Private firms accounted for almost 70 percent of the clinical contracts put out for tender in England last year, to the tune of £2.43 billion.

Incoming German government plans massive military rearmament

Johannes Stern 

A few days before the official start of exploratory talks between the Christian Democratic (CDU/CSU) and Social Democratic (SPD) parties, a recent paper by the Bavarian Christian Social Union makes clear what the real questions are about forming the next government. In a draft resolution, which CSU members of parliament want to agree at their winter retreat in Kloster Seeon starting on Thursday, it states that a “strong, modern Bundeswehr (armed forces)” is necessary for “a secure Germany that lives up to its European and international responsibilities.”

The “best possible equipment, training and care of the soldiers,” as well as the modernization of the German army, costs money. Among other things, investments are “necessary in the areas of digitization, deployment and transport capability, unmanned reconnaissance and armed drones and mobile tactical communications.” Defence expenditure would therefore have to be massively increased. The CSU was basing itself “on the NATO target of 2 percent of gross domestic product.”

Even if deputy SPD leader Ralf Stegner rejected the CSU demand for such a rise, the Social Democrats have long since made clear that they too would aggressively promote the return of German militarism in a new edition of the grand coalition. “The fact our army must be better equipped, that is absolutely necessary,” said SPD chairman Martin Schulz a few days ago at a press conference in Berlin.

At the beginning of December, in a keynote address to the Körber Foundation in Berlin, Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel demanded that after seven decades of relative foreign policy restraint, Germany return to an independent foreign and military policy—supported by a militarized European Union under German leadership. “Now we realize that even with great economic prosperity in our country there is no comfortable place on the side-lines of international politics for us anymore. Neither for us Germans nor for us Europeans,” he declared provocatively.

The aggressive demands for rearmament and more German and European leadership are ushering in a new stage in the foreign policy turnaround initiated by the last German government four years ago. At that time, leading journalists, academics, military officials, business officials and representatives of all the Bundestag (parliamentary) parties had worked on the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (German Institute for International and Security Affairs, SWP) paper “New Power—New Responsibility,” announcing Germany’s return to militarism and aggressive world power politics.

Significantly, the SWP, which is close to the government, has once again submitted a paper titled “Dissolution or Replacement? The International Order in Transition,” which openly makes the case for the establishment of a new world order under German-European leadership. Above all, it considers China and the US, with or without Trump, as international rivals.

“Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China offer the guarantee that a multilateral global regulatory policy is being pursued, which is indispensable from a German and European point of view,” write the authors of the study. Germany must therefore “do everything in its power to establish Europe as an independent world political power factor in the sense of its regulatory conceptions.”

As at the time of the two world wars in the 20th century, tangible imperialist interests are once again of concern. German foreign policy is “burdened by the history of the country and its central position in Europe” and must “compensate for these historical and geopolitical burdens ... through a robust European peace order,” the paper demands. “Because of its export orientation,” “Germany’s economy and its entire social prosperity depend heavily on an open, rules-based world economic order.”

The SWP also makes no secret of the extent of the planned military upgrade. All “available financial resources in all areas of foreign and security policy—foreign policy, defence policy, development policy—[must] be expanded not only absolutely, but also relatively: The total share of public expenditure for shaping German external relations is to be raised as quickly as possible from the present 15 to 20 percent of the federal budget.”

The gigantic sums of money involved are underlined by the recently published report on the Munich Security Conference 2018. It says that the 28 EU member states plus Norway would have to put an additional 114 billion US dollars into defence spending from 2024 in order to achieve the desired 2 percent goal. The largest part “would have to come from Germany, Italy, and Spain—as those countries have high GDPs and a relatively low defence budget in terms of percent of GDP.”

The entire paper makes clear that the ruling classes in Germany and Europe are again preparing for a new major war. The chapters of the document, previously published in English only, have headlines such as “Creating the Armed Forces of the Future,” “Consolidate the European Industrial Base,” “Address the Readiness Problem,” and “Prioritize Investment in Equipment in Order to Upgrade Europe’s Armed Forces.”

The measure of what is required is provided by the military clout of the US. “The forces of NATO-EU member states already include 1.38 million soldiers; slightly more than the United States. The challenge will be to upgrade their skill level,” the report insists. While the US had spent an average 26 percent of its defence budget on new military equipment over the past 10 years, in Europe it was only 18 percent.

The German elite no longer shy away from calling for nuclear weapons. In the Tagesspiegel, Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based think tank Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), attacks Gabriel’s great power speech from the right, because he had not explained “how Germany would position itself without the US nuclear umbrella.”

“Little in Gabriel’s remarks” contributed to “conducting an honest debate today about the German position on nuclear weapons.” But the foreign minister must “come up with an answer to the German and European nuclear issue”; a country like Germany cannot “avoid uncomfortable questions about its nuclear-political positioning.” Benner ends with the prophecy that Germany in 2018 will “inevitably” face a “nuclear weapons debate.” Gabriel would then have to show if he was “really serious about ‘political-strategic thinking’.”

The insane rearmament and world power plans are a serious warning and confirm the call of the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) for new elections. The formation of an extremely right-wing and militaristic new federal government, behind the backs of the population—one that is upgrading Germany and the whole of Europe militarily without any democratic mandate and preparing for war—must not be permitted. The SGP and the World Socialist Web Site will intensify their work in the New Year, calling upon all their readers to actively support the construction of a socialist alternative to capitalism, militarism and war.

Record low temperatures kill at least nine people in US

Trévon Austin

The new year in the United States was accompanied by record low temperatures that killed at least nine people, but the real death count could be much higher. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued wind chill advisories and freeze warnings across the country as temperatures dropped as low as -29 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas.

Authorities in St. Louis, Missouri, said a 54-year-old homeless man was found dead inside a trash bin, frozen to death as the temperature dropped to -6 Fahrenheit. In Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, a 27-year-old woman was found dead on the shore of Lake Winnebago, probably dead from exposure to the frigid air.

In Detroit, where temperatures reached -2 Fahrenheit, an unidentified man was found dead outside a church, according to NBC affiliate WDIV. In Milwaukee, the county medical examiner’s office said the bodies of two men found on Sunday showed signs of hypothermia.

After the mercury fell as low as -27 Fahrenheit in Bismarck, North Dakota, a man was found dead alongside a riverbed. In Charleston, West Virginia, a homeless man was found frozen to death on a porch. A man was found outside “extremely cold” in Madison, Wisconsin, and died on his way to the hospital.

According to the Guardian, hospitals in Atlanta saw a surge in emergency room visits for hypothermia and other cold-related ailments from temperatures as low as 13 Fahrenheit.

“We have a group of patients who are coming in off the street who are looking to escape the cold—we have dozens and dozens of those every day,” Dr. Brooks Moore, associate medical director in the emergency department of Grady Health System, told the Associated Press.

Warming shelters were even opened across the South as freeze warnings covered the region, including hard freeze warnings for much of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Temperatures fell to 8 Fahrenheit near Cullman, Alabama, and 20 Fahrenheit in Mobile, Alabama. Georgia saw one of its coldest temperatures of the winter, 2 Fahrenheit, at a US Forest Service weather station at Toccoa.

Indianapolis tied a record low temperature of -12 Fahrenheit for January 2, 1887, causing public schools to shut down. The Indiana city of Lafayette saw temperatures fall to -19 Fahrenheit, breaking the prior record set in 1979.

In other parts of the nation, near-record lows were recorded. When the ball dropped in New York City on New Year’s Eve, the temperature was 9 Fahrenheit, marking the second coldest day on record after December 31, 1917, according to NBC New York meteorologist Raphael Miranda. The high for Des Moines was -1 Fahrenheit, which is the second-coldest high on New Year’s Day since -6 degrees in 1885, the National Weather Service said. Chicago-area wind chills are expected to lie between -35 and -20 Fahrenheit.

Along with the record cold temperatures, multiple house fires broke out across the Midwest.

In Indianola, Nebraska, three people died in an early morning house fire. Indianola Fire Chief Tom Davidson said the cold temperatures made it difficult to combat the fire. Four people lived in the home, but only one was able to escape. In Waterloo, Iowa, 63-year-old Robert Smiley died from smoke inhalation after a house fire sparked in his home overnight.

In Minnesota, residential fires left seven dead over the weekend. In Hibbing, a fire left two grandparents and two of their grandchildren dead. The grandfather, a retired firefighter, saved one of his grandchildren, but died while trying to rescue others. According to the Star Tribune, Minnesota has seen 64 fire-related deaths this year, logging the highest number of such deaths since 2002.

The wave of frigid temperatures has exposed the disastrous state of social conditions in the United States, affecting the most vulnerable: the homeless, impoverished elderly and youth.

A study published by the Journal of Adolescent Health reported that 1 in 10 people aged between 18 and 25 have experienced some form of homelessness in the past year. Furthermore, 1 in 30 adolescents aged between 13 and 17 experienced homelessness unaccompanied by an adult. This suggests that some 3.5 million young adults and 660,000 adolescents had been homeless for some period within the previous year.

Researchers polled more than 26,000 young people and their families over the past two years. The report intended to challenge the notion that homelessness afflicts mostly older men. The authors of the study wrote that “point in time” surveys underestimate how homelessness affects youth because “young people often shift among temporary circumstances such as living on the streets and couch surfing in unstable locations.”

The study found that homelessness was no less widespread in rural areas than urban ones, and young individuals with an income below $24,000 had a 162 percent higher risk of experiencing homelessness.

Young people without a high school diploma or GED were found to be 346 percent more likely to be homeless, LGBT youth were 120 percent more likely, African Americans had an 83 percent greater risk, non-white Hispanics had a 33 percent higher risk, and unmarried parenting young people are 200 percent more likely to be homeless.

“Our findings probably challenge the images of homelessness. Homelessness is young,” Matthew Morton, a research fellow with the policy center, told the Washington Post. “It’s more common than people expect and it’s largely hidden.”

He continued, “Many young people are getting hammered in this economy…and far too many youth have experienced trauma and lack stable family situations. You have a major affordable housing crisis.”

North and South Korea propose to hold talks

Peter Symonds

The two Koreas have agreed to hold talks next Tuesday after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in a New Year’s speech his country could send a team to the Winter Olympics, due to be held in South Korea next month. Kim also suggested he was open to dialogue to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who came to power last year advocating dialogue with North Korea, reportedly ordered his staff to act quickly on Kim’s offer. Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon proposed a high-level meeting at the border village of Panmunjom for January 9.

“We expect to sit down with North Korea face to face and frankly discuss mutual interests aimed at better inter-Korean relations,” Cho said. “We look forward to Pyongyang’s positive reaction to this.” The meeting would be the first between the two Koreas since 2015.

The proposal for talks came amid high tensions on the Korean Peninsula after bellicose threats by the Trump administration to “totally destroy” North Korea if it refuses to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. The US has also pressured the UN Security Council to impose harsh sanctions on North Korea that are crippling its economy and generating considerable hardship.

Kim’s New Year speech was pitched at South Korea, declaring: “North and South must work together to alleviate the tensions and work together as a people of the same heritage to find peace and stability.” He called for talks “as soon as possible” to discuss North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics.

While adopting a conciliatory tone toward South Korea, Kim warned the Trump administration that the entire US mainland was “within the range of our nuclear weapons and the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office.” This was “not a threat but a reality,” he added.

The North Korean leader called for a halt to joint US-South Korean military exercises. Over the past year, these joint drills, which are scarcely concealed rehearsals for war with North Korea, have markedly increased in scale. Last month, the war games included a major air force drill, as well as special forces exercise to practice for a military intervention into North Korea.

South Korea’s Unification Minister Cho said the offer of high-level talks with North Korea had been discussed with the US. He added that a decision was pending on whether to delay large-scale joint war games until after the Winter Olympics.

China and Russia have previously advocated a halt to the US-South Korean military exercises in return for a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests as a means of starting negotiations. The US has repeatedly ruled out any such plan.

Moreover, US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, last month suggested on Fox News that the US was considering not sending a team to the Winter Olympics. It was an “open question,” she said, as to whether American athletes would compete, citing security issues.

Speaking yesterday, Haley emphatically rejected any compromise with Pyongyang, saying the US “will never accept a nuclear North Korea.” She warned: “As we hear reports that North Korea might be preparing for another missile test—I hope that does not happen, but if it does—we must bring even more measures to bear on the North Korea regime,” she said.

While not rejecting talks between North and South Korea outright, President Donald Trump was rather dismissive, implying that North Korea was simply responding to US-led sanctions and pressure. Using his derogatory term for Kim Jong-un, Trump tweeted: “Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not—we will see!”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declared that the US policy on North Korea “hasn’t changed at all. The United States is committed and will still continue to put maximum pressure on North Korea to change and make sure that it denuclearises the Peninsula. Our goals are the same, and we share that with South Korea.”

South Korean President Moon has made clear that his administration would work in close consultation with allies in any talks with North Korea. He stressed that improvements in inter-Korean relations were not separate from “the issue of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.” In other words, Pyongyang must be compelled to give up its nuclear arsenal.

Since coming to office, Moon has followed the US in applying intense pressure on North Korea, including in allowing the full deployment of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system. On Sunday, South Korean authorities announced the seizure of a second ship allegedly involved in transferring oil products to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions.

Trump’s aggressive confrontation with North Korea has generated sharp divisions in US ruling circles amid fears of a catastrophic war. In a high-profile interview on ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen gave a scathing assessment of Trump’s foreign policy over the past year. Mullen declared it had been “incredibly disruptive, certainly unpredictable in many, many ways” to established relationships and alliances in the post-World War II period.

Mullen warned: “An incredibly dangerous climate exists out there… and one in particular that is [at the] top of the list is North Korea. We’re actually closer, in my view, to a nuclear war with North Korea and in that region than we have ever been. And I just don’t see how—I don’t see the opportunities to solve this diplomatically at this particular point.”

The standoff between the US and North Korea is rapidly coming to a head. Trump has insisted since coming to office that he will not tolerate North Korea having the ability to strike continental United States with a nuclear weapon. Trump officials have repeatedly warned that time is running out for any peaceful resolution. At the same time, North Korea has declared time and again that it will not give up its nuclear weapons without security guarantees from the United States.

It is in this context that the two Koreas plan to meet next week.

Strikes against austerity throughout Israel’s public and private sector

Jean Shaoul

Israeli workers are facing an onslaught on jobs, wages and conditions, in both the public and private sectors. The attacks organised by the corporations, government and the courts are proceeding with the active collusion of the labour unions.

Last week, the trade unions agreed a rotten deal with the government and the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), the state-owned utility, on the liberalisation and privatisation of industry to snuff out lightning strikes mounted in defiance of a ban on walkouts against market-based reforms.

Last August, the High Court of Justice ruled that workers at state-owned enterprises can no longer strike against market reforms, overturning an earlier judgement supporting the right to strike. This was a response to a series of strikes by electrical workers in June and July.

Teva workers protest layoffs (Source: Histadrut)

The ruling constitutes a fundamental attack on the working class in favour of the financial elite. It affects other essential public services, as well as the legal status of the right to strike, previously recognised as a fundamental constitutional right derived from the right to freedom of association, including against government decisions.

The agreement with the IEC, still to be worked out in detail, will slash jobs, raise prices and reduce the company’s debts from 42 billion shekels ($12.1 billion) to 28 billion shekels. IEC’s electricity-generating business is to be moved to a separate entity, to “prevent cross-subsidization” with its transmission monopoly, that will eventually force the IEC out of the generating business altogether.

IEC will slash its 12,500 work-force by 2,800—although this number is likely to rise—sweetened with small increases in pensions and a one-off bonus of between 10,000 ($3,000) and 30,000 ($10,000) shekels per worker for agreeing to the reforms, provided that the IEC meets the government’s target dates for implementing the measures. Trade union officials had previously vowed to reject the job cuts.

The union also agreed to surrender its veto on the IEC’s works committee over new hires or firings. The union retains only its right to approve the firing of an employee on the grounds of “inappropriateness to the job,” and thus its role in policing the workforce on behalf of management.

Another major assault on Israeli workers has come from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the Israeli-controlled multi-national, which has announced plans to slash one quarter of its 55,000 workforce. Some 1,750 Israeli workers will lose their jobs as part of the 14,000 job cuts worldwide.

Teva, viewed as a symbol of Israel’s success in science and high tech-based industries, is the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer and one of the largest employers in Israel. Saddled with $35 billion debt following its $40 billion acquisition of the generics arm of its rival, Allergan, last year, it lost its major source of profit. This was its ability to charge extortionate prices for its drug Copaxone, used to treat multiple sclerosis, following legal challenges in the courts and the expiry of its patent.

A half-day general strike on December 17 in support of Teva workers disrupted business throughout Israel as the entire public sector, health services, utilities and banks remained closed from early morning until noon, and flights in and out of the country were suspended.

Teva workers have continued their protests, blocking the light rail network in Jerusalem city centre and holding demonstrations outside the homes of Teva board members, protesting plans to close the company’s two Jerusalem plants and lay off workers throughout the country. More than 200 workers barricaded themselves inside one of the Jerusalem factories.

Histadrut (Israel’s Trade Union Federation) Chairperson Avi Nissenkorn, and Labour Party Knesset member Shelly Yachimovich, have promoted nationalism and made impotent appeals to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s ultra-right government to save Israeli workers’ jobs.

Last week, the Education Ministry sought and won a ruling from a Tel Aviv labour court blocking a strike by Israeli teachers at kindergartens, elementary and junior high schools called by the Israeli Teachers Union for December 27, claiming that it was called too hastily.

The dispute is over teachers being marked as taking 1.4 days sick leave for each actual day off. The practice had been taking place secretly for 30 years and was only recently discovered when the Education Ministry began to list on the payment slips the number of sick days that were accrued and the number of sick days actually taken, as required by law.

The ministry responded by issuing a statement making clear it works closely with the Teachers’ Union and that the policy had been determined years ago. It read, “In this case too, the ministry is sitting on the ground with the Teachers’ Union in talks to jointly advance the interests of the teachers.”

Less than a month ago, the Teachers Union called off a strike by high school teachers that would have extended sporadic strikes over wages and working conditions, after agreeing a four-year deal with the government.

Teachers in Israel are paid much less than their counterparts in other OECD countries, while class sizes are much larger. Their previous contract expired at the end of 2016 and they were demanding an increase in the monthly salary of a newly-hired teacher from 6,400 shekels ($1,800) a month to 8,000 ($2,300), with a comparable increase for teachers with seven years’ service, improvements in fringe benefits, better working conditions, and bonuses for excellence in teaching.

The Israel Medical Association, the largest doctors’ union, has declared a work dispute that could lead to strike action over plans to change the national health insurance law to prevent doctors moving between the different Health Management Organisations (kupot cholim) as the HMOs try to attract popular doctors and thus patients.

Over the weekend, municipal workers in Jerusalem dumped mounds of garbage near the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem to demand the ministry to pay 50 million shekels ($14.4 million) to the city. The ministry wants the money to be spent on urban development, not public services.

Anger is also increasing at the delays over releasing the results of investigations into corruption at the highest levels of government and the controversial new Recommendations Law, which bars the police from releasing the findings of their investigations into politicians. On Saturday, the fifth consecutive demonstration against corruption was held on Rothschild Boulevard in downtown Tel Aviv, the 58th anti-corruption protest in Israel. As a result of the protests, Netanyahu was forced to amend the Recommendations Bill so it does not apply to current criminal probes, including those involving him, initiated before the introduction of the new law.

Netanyahu has been questioned seven times in the past year over two corruption cases. The first involves allegations that he received gifts from rich business figures, including Australian billionaire James Packer and Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. The second involves claims that he sought a secret (but ultimately unsuccessful) deal for favourable coverage in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, in return for helping curb Yediot's rival, the pro-Netanyahu freesheet Israel Hayom, paid for by the US billionaire Sheldon Adelson. According to Ha’aretz, over the seven-year period since the freesheet’s founding in 2007, the newspaper lost about 730 million shekels ($190 million), or one shekel per copy.

Rising social tensions take place amid a soaring cost of living, while public spending on anti-poverty measures, education, health, transport and social security has been slashed and the wealthy have gained from tax cuts and the protection of capital gains.

According to the Taub Center’s State of the Nation Report 2017, published last week, “price levels in Israel remain among the highest in the OECD” and are 23 percent higher than the average. The high cost of living and steep housing costs sparked major protests in 2011 and 2015 and forced government promises to bring down housing costs.

Israel’s poverty and income inequality rates remain among the highest among OECD nations. This is fuelling the growth of the class tensions and laying the basis for a common struggle by Jewish and Arab workers in Israel and across the Middle East.