The Health Ministry in Jerusalem – run by the ultra-Orthodox party Shas – persuaded the Netanyahu government to cancel a tax on single-use plastics not because it would cause a significant financial burden on the community but because haredi Israelis felt they were being “politically victimized.”
Serendipity: How the Plastic Tax Set Back the Environmentalist Cult Among Charedim!
Quoting JPost:
This was so even though ministry professionals had been working for years on the move because plastics cause harm to the environment and the whole country.
A newly published Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) study found that the well-meaning environmental tax turned into a cultural flashpoint. The 2021 tax on disposable plastics – widely used by haredim with large families and in many family celebrations, made easier by throw-away utensils, plates, and the like – caused a sharp and lasting decline in climate support among the ultra-Orthodox community. It was driven by a deep sense of political victimization – not a financial burden – as many saw the tax as an attack on their way of life. Even years after the tax was repealed, the damage to environmental trust still lingers, the researchers declared.
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“These findings are both fascinating and concerning,” Bloy said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. “Our data show that when environmental policies are perceived as punitive or politically charged, they can provoke a backlash that undermines long-term climate goals – even after the policy itself is revoked.”
Read the rest here…
Needless to say, the timing, the politicians who introduced the anti-human “law” and their previous records, the devilish details, and the surrounding rhetoric (context, in short), were all crystal clear in aim. Gaslighting won’t work.