Together Party Submits Reservist Benefits Bill as Its First in New Knesset

Naftali Bennett's Together faction announced on Wednesday, November 11, that it had submitted its first bill in the 26th Knesset, a package of benefits for reservists and discharged soldiers that the party calls the "Servers Law." Every member of the faction signed it. Under the bill, active reservists would receive up to NIS 4,000 a month toward a daycare center or home daycare, and a 50 percent discount on electricity, water and arnona property tax, with the same rate off public transport and state fees. The government would also be authorized to give reservists a discount on a first apartment. Discharged combat soldiers would have five years to use their tuition funding from the Memadim for Studies fund, or six years for engineering, medicine and architecture, and non-combat soldiers would have half their tuition funded for the first time. The party says the benefits would be paid for by changing the criteria for state support and subsidies and by stopping payments to households that take part in neither service nor employment; it gave no detailed cost estimate. "Our reward for those who serve in the regular army and the reserves is a clear message to them and their families: we are committed to you," Bennett said. Faction chairman MK Eitan Ginzburg said: "We made a commitment to the public, and now we are starting to keep it and repair the country." Bennett presented the Servers Law at a conference on January 5, attended by about 700 reservists, where he said none of the parents in the hall had received daycare subsidies and that most of the nearly NIS 2 billion a year spent on them went to families of yeshiva students who had not served and do not work. On Tuesday he wrote from the Knesset that reservists along the borders were crying out to be relieved, and that he was doing everything to help Gadi Eisenkot form a government quickly so that the faction could carry out what he called the servers' revolution.