Government ministers and deputy ministers voted for generous pay raises for themselves this week, after the Knesset Finance Committee approved the measure.
Starting from January's salary, which will be deposited into bank accounts at the beginning of February, ministers' salaries will increase by 4,987 shekels ($1,467) per month and the prime minister's salary will rise by 5,547 shekels ($1,629) per month.
Elected officials' salaries will from now be linked to the average monthly salary in Israel, rather than the Consumer Price Index, as has been the case to date.
Two contributing factors to the pay jump for ministers are the increase in the national average salary and the accumulation of years in which ministers' did not receive raises.
Ordinary Knesset members will also enjoy a pay raise, as will judges and the president of Israel, as a result of the rise in the average salary. Starting this month, their salaries will increase by 1,500 to 2,220 shekels ($441 to $652) per month.
The raises will bring the salary of the Israeli president to 62,900 shekels ($18,484) a month, the salaries of the prime minister and Knesset speaker to 49,554 shekels ($14,548) per month, and the salaries of ministers, deputy ministers, and the opposition leader to 44,223 shekels ($12,982) per month. This makes a minister's gross annual salary 530,676 shekels ($155,784), more than four times the average monthly salary in Israel.
The increases will cost the state some 2 million shekels ($587,000) a year, but about half of that will revert to the state's coffers in the form of increased income tax.
The measure passed after a stormy session of the Knesset Finance Committee, punctuated by violent outbursts.
Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) proposed the bill, saying it was unreasonable that ordinary MKs earned more than government ministers and the prime minister himself because ministers' salaries were linked to inflation.
MKs Mickey Rosenthal (Zionist Union), Yael German (Yesh Atid) and Ilan Gilon (Meretz) opposed the ministerial pay raise and asked that the vote be handed off to an external committee.
The committee meeting marked a new low for Knesset conduct when a vicious argument broke out between Rosenthal and MK Oren Hazan (Likud). Hazan defended the security detail assigned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son Yair and called Rosenthal a "coward" and a "nothing."
Rosenthal responded: "You're shouting as an expert on whores? You're the adviser on prostitute affairs."
"I think you could ask your wife or your mother," Hazan shouted back.
Hazan then turned to Gafni, who had not reprimanded Rosenthal, telling him: "You're not God, you're not in charge of everyone. Time after time, you let them talk to me like this. Take off your kippah. You should bow your head. You should be ashamed of yourself."
Gafni told Hazan that Rosenthal's remarks had been drowned out by the shouting.
Although some ministers and MKs announced that they would forgo pay raises, they do not have the authority to refuse them.
