The only Israeli on-line art auction Meet your perfect Match. The costs of such laws often reach unreal heights in the realm of tens or even hundreds of billions of shekels. Opposition to these laws arouses criticism. Their cancellation leads to fury and resentment, which is just what happened this year when laws whose goodies were already being savored by a number of citizens were repealed.
Nothing is easier to support than populist legislation.
Such bills normally come about after MKs have identified a truly vulnerable spot in a certain group or society as a whole - a lapse that could be remedied by the injection of tens or hundreds of millions of shekels. Ostensibly, there was a certain logic behind the original determination that pension funds would pay a retired widower at a lower rate than a widow, the presumption being that the man is the main breadwinner and his departure from the scene poses a more serious threat to the widow's economic survival than the woman's death would to the widower's livelihood. It's no wonder that MK Amir Peretz's bill designed to eliminate this discrimination won broad support in the Knesset and that the repeal of the bill is generating anger and vitriol on the part of those adversely affected. No less just is another piece of legislation that has been repealed, one which granted a 75 percent discount in payments for medicines to the elderly and new immigrants on a fixed income. And these people are ill to boot.