In the daily inundation of political scandal, violence, government infighting and general economic and social mayhem that we Israelis can’t seem to live without (judging by our consumption of news media), a proposed new tax on fruits and vegetables has garnered little public outcry. 

Until now, fruits and vegetables have been exempt from the 16.5% value-added tax (v.a.t.) placed on nearly every other consumer item. But foods like tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and eggplant had been considered basic daily necessities, like bread and milk (both of which are still price-controlled). 

Surprisingly little of the criticism has focused on the fact that v.a.t. is a regressive tax. In other words, raising the price of basic items will hurt the poor disproportionately. The health aspects of this tax have, however, been pointed out: People are likely to eat less fruits and vegetables if prices rise. (No need for a Ph.D. in economics to connect those dots.) And the Minister of Agriculture has stated – for the record – that the new taxes will hurt farmers.

 Instead of making every-day healthy foods harder to buy, why aren’t we upping taxes on soft drinks, high-fat fast foods, cigarettes and internet porn – levies that have been suggested elsewhere? The answer is politics. As soon as a budget is proposed, coalition politics come into play, rearranging the slices of the pie until there’s enough partisan support for it to pass a vote. Taxing soft drinks, for instance, becomes a party issue when a giant Coca-Cola factory pays property taxes to the city of Bnai Brak and employs hundreds of workers there. The Shas party, with a large political base in Bnai Brak, is a part of the government coalition. Farmers, on the other hand, have seen their political power steadily wane since the first right-of-center Likud government came to power in 1977.  Our once powerful voice has, by now, shrunk to a mere peep. Although the Minister of Agriculture is a member of the Labor party — the traditional stronghold of the farming communities, the kibbutzim and moshavim – he knows that the days when we might have taken to the streets to throw rotten tomatoes at politicians are long gone. In other words, the stability of the coalition is not terribly threatened by a fruit and vegetable tax.

 “And what about the health issue?” you surely want to ask. Here, it’s hard not to resort to cynicism. In a government in which one of every four Knesset members is a minister or deputy minister, not one coalition member is willing to head the Ministry of Health. So there is literally no one, in this case, whose job it is to point out the obvious – that taxing fruits and vegetables could be harmful to people’s health. (And really, if you’ve been convinced that Iran will be dropping a bomb on you any day now, what’s the point of worrying about getting enough fruits and vegetables?)

 Undoubtedly, in between titillating news reports of celebrity crimes and sobering ones of failed peace initiatives and political battles, we’ll see a few more human interest stories involving families that can no longer feed their children cucumbers or farmers in financial difficulties. Most of us will shrug our shoulders and either pay more for our food or find a way to cut back. To paraphrase: Let them drink Coke.

photo: e-Cobo