During the debate on the "property tax fund" bill in the finance committee , clashes broke out today (Monday) that were on the verge of violence . Despite the strike across the country, the committee met as usual, and continued to vote on the last reservations before the final approval of the integration of the law into the upcoming law of settlements.
The mayors gather for a crucial discussion: will the strike continue tomorrow?
The storm of the property tax fund: what does the proposal mean and what is the uproar?
The chairman of the Otzma Yehudit faction and a member of the Finance Committee, MK Yitzhak Kreuzer, spoke this evening with Ben Caspit and Aryeh Eldad on 103FM and commented: "It saddens me to see that everything this coalition is trying to do or the members of the opposition are uprooting the content and withdrawing it by clashing Politically and it turns into a media festival instead of sitting down and discussing this law in a matter-of-fact and professional way, and even if there are sections in it that require amendment and there may be, then it loses a bit of the point."
"There are power struggles here between the 15th Forum, the big and powerful cities that have a lot of property taxes and offices, and they have a very large influence," he claimed, adding: "There is a fact that is an existing fact, that in the powerful cities like Tel Aviv and everyone wants to open businesses there, For example, a citizen who lives in Bat Yam and opens his office in Tel Aviv, the property tax goes to the municipality of Tel Aviv and the entire burden is placed on the municipality of Bat Yam. It is true, there are also issues in this law that need to be corrected, but when some law of this government comes, which comes to try to give some distortion, And this law comes to strengthen weak cities, you see power struggles of strong cities, which translate in this tabernacle into political pressures that are irrelevant because we have not seen those strong cities or those Knesset members who are now shouting with all their might in the committee were not in all the discussions."
According to him, "In the end, there are power struggles here, no mayor wants them to touch his coffers, but reality has created discrimination between weak and strong cities, so this law provides some balance here. It is not about such big funds, no big city will be harmed."
"Every discussion or law concerning matters that the members of the coalition try to bring in the committees and pass laws that will correct years of injustice here, the guys in the opposition drag it into a discourse that can heat up the public outside like the headline you said. This is very far from reality, it is true that there are weak ultra-Orthodox cities, but I think That misses the essence of the matter. The title is to take a topical issue that really deals with distributive justice between strong and weak cities, and turn it into a discourse that is taken from the strong secular Tel Aviv," he added.
Chaos in the Finance Committee (Photo: Mark Israel Salem)Also, when Prof. Aryeh Eldad pointed out that one of the things the coalition failed to repel was the slogan 'take from the cities that opposed the reform and give to the ultra-Orthodox', MK Kreuzer admitted: "You touch the point. Any discussion or law matters that the members of the coalition try to bring in the committees and pass laws that will correct years of injustice here, the guys in the opposition drag it into a discourse that can heat up the public outside like the title you said. This is very far from reality, it is true that there are weak ultra-Orthodox cities, but I think this misses the essence of the matter. The title is to take an important issue that really deals with distributive justice between strong and weak cities, and turn it into a discourse that takes from the strong secular Tel Aviv."
"In the agreement reached with Biebs and the local government, he will be the chairman of the board of this fund. Therefore, he will have an absolute majority in playing where the money will go and in what percentage. That's when the riot started, after they came to this understanding with him, he in front of all the authorities that he probably couldn't stand up to, he retracted it. As I said, a citizen who opens his offices in the strong city, he will pay his business property tax to the strong city, on the other hand, he returns to the weak city where he lives and the property tax for the residence the mayor is not able to give him," he emphasized.
"Negev-Galil has half a billion NIS left"
Finally, MK Kreuzer addressed his party's claim that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is abandoning the Negev and the Galilee, this in light of the distribution of the budget : "In the distribution of the coalition funds, Otzma Yehudit demanded to bring a line to the Negev and Galilee Ministry. There is an agreement with the Treasury with Smotrich coalition agreements and unfortunately we see that Minister Smotrich's offices have an inflated budget and at the end of the Negev Galilee there is half a billion NIS left which is not enough for the commitments we promised we would fulfill in strengthening the settlement and transforming the periphery that has been neglected for many years.
"We have agreements in the coalition agreements and with the Prime Minister on other numbers. We insisted, we stood on our back legs and we will have to stand on our back legs as well so that Negev Galil will receive the number they promised us," he declared.
Assisted in the preparation of the article: Shani Romano 103fm
© 2026 News In Israel - Israeli News In English. All Rights Reserved.