Is Israel's Minister of Welfare both opposed to institutionalization and in favor of it?

Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs Ya'akov Margi

[Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90]

Israel currently has a Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs who is impressively skilled at speaking out of both sides of his mouth. 

When Ya'akov Margi addresses people with disabilities and their activist supporters, he is a passionate champion of their rights to equality. He assures them that he and his staff will endeavor to enable all of them to leave institutions for independent living in the very near future.

He did this in March 2023 at a committee hearing into the report of another committee headed by retired judge Shulamit Dotan. The Dotan Committee's recommendations relate to a new law passed by the Knesset in June 2022: the Welfare Services for People with Disabilities Law, discussed here [in Hebrew].

The committee recommended closing all the institutions for people with disabilities within the next five years and replacing them with solutions within the community. 

It is no surprise that the law's passage was hailed by activists as "dramatic" and "historical" and raised high hopes that Israel would at long last follow the rest of the developed world in shutting down its large, locked, isolated institutions that today house some 18,000 of its citizens with disabilities.

Behind those walls, the basic human rights of these citizens are denied on a daily basis, repeatedly resulting in neglect, abuse and occasionally death.

It is obvious that the new law's achievements will largely depend on the stance of the incoming Minister of Welfare. He will determine the details of the many outstanding regulations that must be established.

One crucial subject, a fraught one, will be budget. Cash will need to be re-channelled away from the institutions to individuals with disabilities.

For years it has baffled many of us who abhor institutionalization that Israel, otherwise such a progressive country, remains in relation to this specific issue mired in the Dark Ages.

It has, however, become increasingly clear that much of the foot-dragging is rooted in the huge profits pocketed by the operators of those institutional facilities. All of the government benefits accruing to the residents of their institutions reach the operators. The Ministry does not trouble itself to demand detailed accounts of the distribution of those funds.

The less those operators spend on staff and care of their residents, the more cash they themselves retain. The many cases of abuse and neglect at those institutions leave little room for doubt about the operators' priorities.

Hence it should not come as a surprise to discover that they exert pressure on politicians to evade the new law and the Dotan Committee recommendations. After all, the status quo is working fine for them.

Usually, though, the public can only imagine the exchanges taking place between those operators of institutions and our politicians.

So it was highly unusual - and shocking - to read of the open assurance made by Minister Margi to one of those operators, less than three months after his address at the committee hearing I mentioned above. 

Image source: The ADI website (Click to enlarge)

Some details:

• According to an early-June 2023 public relations handout, Minister Ya'akov Margi, accompanied by other Ministry officials, visited the ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village. 
• Alongside its integrated nurseries, rehabilitation center and therapy pool stands a closed institution housing some 163 residents, ranging from children to adults.
• At the conclusion of their tour of the premises which included the institution - or, as it's referred to on the ADI site, the "residential homes" - Minister Margi lavished praise on the enterprise. “I am more than happy to be here today. This place has grown immensely and the entire subject of rehabilitation has blossomed."
• He concluded with these words: “We must copy this village model to other parts of Israel.”

None of this has been reported in the mainstream media yet. Only ADI itself and the B'Hadrei Haredim news site, have publicized it.

But what's abundantly clear is that Minister Margi is eager to spread the curse of institutionalization even further throughout Israel than it currently is.

And the hell with that "historic" new law.