Almost unique protest against Finance Minister Lapid

Lots of people are upset at Minister of Finance Yair Lapid over the budget cuts. All those people who were excited that the incoming Finance Minister would relentlessly take money from the haredim and pump it into the economy and turn Israel into a haven for the Middle Class, are now facing the reality that the haredi issue was not really about the money (the amount of money the haredi parties received is paltry compared to the actual deficit) and the money is going to come, as always, from them, from all of us.

People are shocked and angry. The surveys say there is tremendous disappointment in, and even anger at, the way Yair Lapid has so far performed in his role. Nu, nu. That's politics. People who believe politicians promises are setting themselves up for disappointment.

There is talk now about returning to the social protests of 2 summers ago. Bringing people by the thousands or tens of thousands out to the streets and the plazas and protest the increased taxes and budget cuts. The haredim are going to arrange mass tefilla rallies. As we say in Hebrew (using a phrase that originates from the Neviim), עולם כמנהגו נוהג, or in English, as the world turns, or such is life.

There is one fairly unique, or almost unique, form of protest that is being tried.

One lawyer from Givatayim has filed a complaint with the police for breaking his campaign promises. The lawyer says that as great as the expectations were, so is how great the disappointment is. There is a tremendous difference between what was promised and what was said before and between what is being said now, in as short a time period as just a couple of months.

So, he filed his complaint with the police, claiming that Lapid broke the law (חוק השליחות), and broke elections promises, when he promised to not raise taxes, and he acheived his objective (i.e. to be elected) by deceit.
(source: Mako)

I say this is almost unique because we have had at least a few similar forms of protest, and specifically from the religious side of the political spectrum. It did not involve the police, but I specifically remember two similar cases. One person filed a lawsuit against MK Moshe Gafni for political decisions his party was involved in, and someone sued Aryeh Deri (not an MK at the time) for his involvement in promoting the Oslo Accords that led to the murder of over 1500 Israelis. Not exactly the same as this situation, but not all that different.

I do not expect much to come from this complaint. The police will have to open an investigation, but I suspect they will close it fairly quickly. if it could even possibly lead to anywhere, every politician in the country would suddenly have complaints filed and investigations opened against them for breaking campaign promises.

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