adva center suggests wealthy share costs of war

The Adva Center, a left-leaning think tank in Tel Aviv, has called upon the Government to ensure that high-income Israelis bear a proportionate share of the costs of the recent Lebanon War. In a letter reported in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, the Center recommended two alternate sources of funding: deferring the later phases of tax reduction provided by previous legislation, which the Center said was supported by many mainstream economists, and a temporary increase in the companies tax from 34 to 36 percent. The Center suggested that similar measures had been used to cover emergency measures in European countries. The Adva (Hebrew for "ripple") Center is concerned with social justice issues and--in contrast to similar centers in other countries--has taken an activist role with respect to tax as well as spending policy: the Center caused something of a stir a couple of years ago with a study showing that Israelis of European origin remained substantially wealthier than those coming from Middle Eastern Jewish or Arab families. Residents of northern Israel, which was hit hardest by the war, hail predominantly from the latter two communities, and there is a widespread sense that they were abandoned or at least not adequately taken into consideration during the recent war.