The Economic Party leader promises sweeping changes to living costs within three months of becoming finance minister—and threatens to bring down any government that gets in his way.
Israel’s young people have faced Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, but the price of filling a shopping cart still frightens them, Economic Party leader Yaron Zelekha told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
“Our young people deserve to live, not just survive. They are not afraid of the Iranians. They were not afraid of Hezbollah or Hamas. But they are afraid of a trip to the supermarket.”
Their mothers, he added, fear their children will leave Israel because they cannot afford to buy a home. Those pressures drive his campaign to become finance minister - and, he warned, keeping a government together would not take priority over addressing them.
“If anyone gets in my way, I will bring down their government,” he said, stating he would demand control of the Finance Ministry and the Competition Authority in coalition negotiations.
It is a warning he would apply to either political bloc. Whether Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, or Gadi Eisenkot becomes prime minister, Zelekha said he would insist on the authority to implement his economic program and would be prepared to bring down the government if obstructed.
Zelekha’s five-step plan to lower cost of living as soon as he takes the helm
His opening offer to voters is equally bold: five measures to tackle living costs, with a difference households would feel within three months of his taking office.
“I plan to take five steps as the opening move in a fight against the cost of living that will last throughout the government’s term,” Zelekha said.
The first two would abolish all tariffs, without exception, and eliminate import quotas.
The third would prevent monopolies in domestic production from also acting as importers. Zelekha argued that companies operating in both markets use their control of imports to block competition against their locally produced goods.
His fourth measure would prohibit exclusive import agreements and prevent an importer controlling imports from one major international manufacturer from also taking control of imports from another manufacturer that should compete with it.
Finally, he would move the Competition Authority into the Finance Ministry, placing it under his supervision so that he could oversee enforcement of competition law.
Zelekha described the package as an opening intervention that would produce a significant change on its own, followed by further reforms throughout the government’s term.
Asked how quickly people would notice the difference, he gave a timeline of months, not years.
“Within three months from the day I take my seat, you will not recognize the country,” he said.
Zelekha further insisted that his premise would not require any funding, and would actually generate money.
Like its citizens, the government also pays inflated prices for its purchases, he argued. Meanwhile, households spending more on necessities have less money available for other economic activity, slowing the economy and limiting growth in tax revenues.
Lowering those costs, he maintained, would benefit public finances as well as consumers.
Zelekha’s willingness to negotiate with either bloc comes with an insistence that the identity of the prime minister would not change his economic strategy.
“None of them will change my strategy, because implementing it will be entrusted to me. I will be finance minister, and I will not allow any of them to interfere.”
If a prime minister obstructed him, he said, he would not hesitate to bring down the government and move to the opposing bloc. He presented his independence from both camps as a source of negotiating power.
“Although my positions are right-wing, my conditions are substantive matters of principle.”
Beyond control of the Finance Ministry and Competition Authority, Zelekha set two further conditions.
“We will not sit in a government that includes Arab parties, and we will not sit in a government that allows draft evasion.”
He called for Arabs to perform national service and haredim to serve in the military, saying the state should create frameworks that allow haredi recruits to preserve their religious beliefs.
Those arrangements, he said, should be accompanied by higher pay for regular soldiers and better conditions for reservists. At the same time, he argued that people avoiding service should not continue receiving state benefits.
For Zelekha, demanding broader participation in service also means finding the money to support those who serve. He criticized an approach that relies on aggressive rhetoric against population groups without providing the resources needed to improve daily life.
A partnership rooted in rejecting the status quo
That connection between service and economic policy is central to his partnership with Yoaz Hendel, which Zelekha said followed more than half a year of discussions.
“Neither of us is willing to let the status quo continue.”
He described their shared objective as shaking a system in which some benefit from connections between wealth and political power while others maintain arrangements allowing them to avoid military service.
Hendel, he said, brings plans to improve reservists’ conditions and establish military frameworks capable of accommodating haredim. Zelekha would seek the financial resources to implement them.
Asked whether either had made concessions to establish the alliance, he said their agendas reinforced each other. Both, he added, hold right-wing positions, oppose a Palestinian state, and support strengthening settlement in the West Bank.
Zelekha pointed to the haredi campus at Ono Academic College as an example of a framework that allowed students to enter the workforce while maintaining their religious identity. He argued that suitable military frameworks could follow the same principle.
“But those plans require money. I know how to bring in the money.”