Explosion again over defense budget: Lapid insisted on knowing the source, defense minister canceled the meeting

Defense Minister Yisrael Katz canceled a meeting planned to discuss transferring a budget to the security system, after opposition leader Yair Lapid demanded to know the source of the budget and insisted on scheduling senior budget officials for the discussion.

Defense Minister Yisrael Katz scheduled opposition leader Yair Lapid for a meeting to discuss transferring the budget to the security system, following the exposure by News 12. According to the report, News 12 learned today (Wednesday) that before the meeting Lapid insisted on knowing the source of the budget and requested that the chief economist to the chief of staff and the head of the budget division attend the discussion. Due to Lapid's desire to know details about the budget source, the minister decided to cancel the meeting.

A week ago a storm occurred in the political system following the exposure by News 12: during a security briefing Prime Minister Netanyahu asked Lapid to advance a move to transfer substantial funds to the army during the election period. Lapid clarified that the opposition would support the move only if the budget source was presented and coalition funds to the haredim were cut, and that he is in favor of transferring money to the IDF but that the budget would be taken from coalition funds. Netanyahu requested that the deputy chief of staff attend the meeting and update Lapid on the urgency of the move, but the opposition leader argued that there is no need for legislative change and demanded cutting the coalition funds which he defined as wasteful. Since then, approaches have been made to opposition leaders to reach agreements, but these were answered in the negative.

According to the report, Lapid argued that the budget source cannot be raising taxes on the middle class and reserve soldiers, and demanded including in the proposal the cancellation of coalition funds and tens of billions of shekels transferred to finance haredi draft exemptions, in return for opposition support for the proposal even in the Knesset. In Likud they argued that Lapid is misleading the public regarding the defense budget and that his claims are unfounded and false, and added that the state's revenues were higher than expected due to the government's economic policy and therefore the deficit is also lower than expected, so the defense budget can be increased without raising taxes. The office of the defense minister chose not to comment on the report.