The discrimination of people with disabilities in the State of Israel is institutional

Until October 7, approximately one million people with severe functional disabilities lived in Israel. From October 7 another 100,000 Israeli citizens became disabled because of the war. Half are civilians, half are soldiers. Most of the new disabilities are mental, “transparent”, invisible: battle shock and post-trauma.

I am very concerned about the future they have in a country that discriminates against people with disabilities as a matter of policy. A country where approximately 50% of the people with disabilities who live there are unemployed. A country that has a discriminatory system of laws by definition. A country not accessible to people with disabilities.

The peak of discrimination is the “Laron Law” and the disregard (eligibility tables according to disability percentages), which are the biggest barrier to integrating people with disabilities into work: the law sets a salary of 5,700 shekels, and a disabled person who reaches it – they start taking away his allowance. This law actually punishes people with disabilities who work, because it takes money from them.

When we start working, we ask how much we will earn. When a disabled person starts working, he asks how much money he will lose.

Another shocking law prohibits the work of people with mental disabilities (including combat and post-traumatic survivors) in kindergartens (why? Because they are dangerous for children?!). The law prohibits the employment of people with mental disabilities in daycare centers for children, in order to prevent “danger” for children. delusional According to the law, 250,000 citizens with mental disabilities (combat trauma, post-traumatic) are dangerous for children.

Israel has another illusory law – the adapted minimum wage law – which allows people with disabilities to be paid a lower wage, which is adapted to their disability. Let’s say 60 or 50 percent of the minimum wage – depending on ability. In fact, it is a law that states that people with disabilities are worth less than anyone else. Did Israeli law, the State of Israel, really define people with disabilities as inferior people?!

Another scandal is the modern slavery law (“rehabilitation” or “protected employment”), which states that it is permissible to pay people with disabilities who work in protected factories a wage of NIS 3-5 per hour, without social conditions. This is modern day slavery. People who produce products that sell for hundreds of shekels (jewelry and more) – receive a salary of 5 shekels per hour of work.

And we did not talk about Israeli society, which is stigmatized, that 48% of people in it said they would not agree to live next to a person with a mental disability or autism, and that 61% of it would not agree to rent an apartment to them! And more and more terrible surveys.

Something dramatic must be done.

We need to take advantage of the new contract (“New Deal”), which we will all have to sign, between the state and its citizens, so that it fixes the system of laws that discriminates and blocks people with disabilities, because the laws are their greatest enemy and their greatest discrimination.

Accessibility, for example, means equality – the ability of a person with a disability to perform basic actions. An example of inaccessibility is the sidewalks in Tel Aviv. They are sunken, that’s right. But they are invested in prams. Not for wheelchairs.

To amend the system of laws that discriminates against people with disabilities

71% of Israelis are employed in the economy. Only 51% of Israelis with disabilities are employed.

In order to ensure the integration of those who suffered disabilities in the war and the massacre, within the framework of the “New Deal” it is necessary to restart the attitude of the Israeli state and society towards its citizens with disabilities: it is necessary to legislate, it is necessary to integrate them into work, to enforce the law that requires the integration of 5% of employees with disabilities in every public body ( which we initiated in ‘Equal Chance’ in 2017).

The system of laws that discriminates against people with disabilities must be abolished and amended. Create legislation that will punish those who discriminate against people with disabilities because of their disability. To create a mechanism that will take care of the special needs that arose after the great disaster, in order to allow people with disabilities who joined the disability circle, to work, start families, integrate into society, be independent, and continue their lives from where they changed.

The state must fight the war of people who have disabilities to have an equal chance to integrate into work and society.

• Oren Hellman is the father of a girl with special needs, he founded the project “Equal Chance” to integrate people with disabilities in work and society, and was a vice president at the Electric Company