by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Defying fierce opposition, the coalition pushed the 2025 budget through its final Knesset reading on Tuesday, averting a political crisis and securing a crucial victory for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Failure to pass the budget by the March 31 deadline would have automatically triggered new elections, threatening the government’s survival.
Lawmakers passed the NIS 755 billion ($205B) budget in a 66-52 vote, with Finance Minister Smotrich calling it a responsible wartime plan that includes support for reserve soldiers and recovery efforts in Israel’s north and south, saying the budget had “everything we need to win on the front and on the home front.”
“The State of Israel is facing the longest and most expensive war we have ever known, and by God’s grace, we are succeeding in the mission – supporting all war efforts, placing the reserve soldiers at the top of our priorities with a support package of 9 billion NIS, and managing Israel’s economy responsibly,” Smotrich stated.
“We promoted measures that will support growth and allow the Israeli economy to maintain its strength and continue to prosper. This is a war budget and, God willing, it will also be the victory budget,” Smotrich concluded.
Following an all-night debate over thousands of defeated opposition reservations, the legislation passed in a final vote Tuesday afternoon. With a March 31 deadline looming, failure to pass the budget would have automatically triggered general elections.
The Foreign Ministry will get a NIS 545 million boost, secured by Gideon Sa’ar’s National Unity party, to expand public diplomacy efforts, including weekly media briefings and an AI-powered center for rapid response to global news.
“Israel’s public diplomacy is a crucial and life-saving matter, just like weapons on the battlefield,” Sa’ar said. “We are facing a new form of antisemitism, one that targets the Jewish state, delegitimizes it, and dehumanizes it, while applying double standards against us.”
However, not everyone praised the budget’s passing, as opposition leader Yair Lapid called it “the greatest robbery in the country’s history.”
“Your rulers are rogues and cronies of thieves, everyone avid for presents and greedy for gifts,” Lapid stated, citing the Book of Isaiah.
“In a normal country, during a war, during an economic crisis, the government does not have two ministers in the Education Ministry, two ministers in the Finance Ministry, two ministers in the Defense Ministry,” said Yair Lapid, accusing the government of shifting billions of shekels from the middle class to “people who do not work and do not enlist.”
Ahead of the final vote, opposition leaders, including National Unity chairman Benny Gantz, blasted the budget as a symbol of the government’s “disconnection and shamelessness.”
Gantz warned that while the coalition sees the budget as a path to surviving until 2026, its “arrogance” would only deepen public discontent. He accused the government of abandoning reservists, hostage families, northern residents, and young families, saying the plan lacks “growth engines, incentives for social change, and vision.”
Instead of building for the future, Gantz said, the coalition is “taking the wind out of the sails of the Israeli economy.”
Opposition lawmakers slammed the government for slashing around NIS 3 billion ($814M) from ministries—which impacts the salaries of teachers and social workers—while leaving ultra-Orthodox institutions and ministries labeled “superfluous” by treasury officials untouched.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Israeli officials are preparing to brief President Donald Trump on new military options against Iran when he meets later this month with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid growing concern that Tehran is rapidly rebuilding its ballistic missile program and restoring damaged air defenses, according to an NBC News exclusive citing a person with direct knowledge of the plans and multiple former U.S. officials.
Israel, Greece, and Cyprus have agreed to accelerate a long-discussed regional energy and security partnership, pledging deeper cooperation amid rising instability in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean.
The United States has seized another crude oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking the second such operation in less than two weeks as President Donald Trump intensifies pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his government.
Ukraine’s military says it is attempting to halt a Russian incursion into a border village in the northeastern Sumy region, even as diplomatic efforts continue to seek an end to the nearly four-year war.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for “peaceful coexistence” as his nation marked the first anniversary of a deadly car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in eastern Germany that revived a debate about the influx of migrants from mainly Muslim countries.
With Christmas approaching, a Christian worker and his family have fled a brick kiln in Pakistan where they were effectively held in modern-day slavery by their Muslim employer, amid continuing concerns over the safety of Christian girls in the mainly Islamic nation, investigators told Worthy News.
Jerusalem will host a high-level trilateral summit on Monday as Israel, Greece, and Cyprus move to deepen security, energy, and strategic cooperation amid growing concern over Turkey’s expanding military posture in the eastern Mediterranean.