For the past 73 years, Israel's elderly – our parents and this country's founding generation – have been devoid of proper representation in the Knesset. With the brief exception of three years (2006-2009), during which the Pensioners party had seven lawmakers in parliament, on behalf of sat in the Knesset, no party seeking to champion the cause of Israel's senior citizens has ever crossed the electoral threshold.
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This has essentially created a situation where there is no one to fight for the rights of this vital social sector, whose members find themselves excluded from the very heart of Israeli democracy.
Ahead of the next month's elections, former Mossad intelligence agency chief Danny Yatom resurrected a pale version of the Pensioners party in what proved a failed bid. His announcement on Wednesday, saying that he was pulling out of the election race over the fact that he could not find a larger political party to partner with to ensure he would cross the electoral threshold, reflects an outrageous reality by which over 1.3 million Israelis have lost the right to vote for a sectorial party to represent them and fight not for power and prestige, but for pension benefits, late-in-life healthcare, and the right to grow old with dignity.
Iconic Israeli general Yigal Allon coined the now-immortal phrase, "A people that doesn't remember its past – its present is uncertain and its future is unclear." This should guide us when we debate matters of policy regarding our elderly.
Only by way of having an organized political party that focuses on this unique sector within the framework of the Knesset, can we be sure that the Israeli leadership pays these issues the proper attention and affords our senior citizens the full range of medical, financial, social, and cultural services they deserve.
The religious and Arab sectors have been able to ensure that they have lawmakers in the Knesset dedicated solely to serving their interests. Senior citizens deserve the same.
Only sufficient parliamentary presence can ensure elderly Israelis' needs are met through legislation, and only significant electoral power can impact policymakers.
In current-day Israel, nothing gets done without political lobbying. This is the only way to tackles issues like all manners of abuse against the elderly, increasing pension benefits, and ensuring Holocaust survivors are cared for properly.
We all witnessed with horror the toll the coronavirus took on Israel's older populations with the pandemic first hit us last year when the government rolled out the national nursing home protection program only after 1,000 senior citizens had succumbed to the disease.
Israeli society contends with countless issues tearing it apart, but even in the chaotic reality we live in, some social norms and priorities must be observed. Ancient decrees such as "honor thy father and thy mother" and "rise before the elderly," and "do not cast me away when I am old," must also be anchored in modern legislation if they are to have actual substance.
This can be done only through the legislator and only by a political party dedicated to the interests of our senior citizens.
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