Coalition Ghosts Knesset Debate as Food Prices Bite: “Price Madness” Meets Political Indifference

In what can only be described as a national embarrassment just one year before Israel’s next election, the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee convened today to discuss the fifth consecutive spike in food prices in less than two years, and not a single coalition lawmaker bothered to show up.
Not one.

Except, that is, for Likud MK David Biton, the committee’s chairman, who sat alone at the government’s side of the room, flanked not by fellow coalition members, but by empty chairs and political apathy.

Opposition Calls Out “Disconnected” Government

The opposition seized the moment. Yesh Atid MK Yasmin Sachs Fridman, one of the few lawmakers who did attend, posted sharply on X (formerly Twitter):

“Only Knesset members from the opposition are present. The price madness at supermarkets apparently hasn’t reached the disconnected coalition members.”

Her words capture what millions of Israelis have been feeling for months: a government out of touch with daily reality, seemingly more concerned with legal maneuvers and political positioning than with the citizens crushed under grocery bills.

תיראו מופתעים:
עכשיו בועדת כלכלה- דיון בנושא עליית מחירים חמישית בשנתיים במוצרי מזון. רק ח״כים של האופוזיציה נוכחים. טירוף המחירים בסופר כנראה לא הגיע לחברי הקואליציה המנותקים. pic.twitter.com/ipjMmOelYx

— יסמין סאקס פרידמן (@Yasminsfridman) October 27, 2025

A Crisis Two Years in the Making

Since Hamas’ barbaric October 7, 2023 massacre and Israel’s ensuing multi-front war, the economy has absorbed shock after shock, disrupted trade routes, wartime mobilization costs, and global inflation.

The result: food prices have risen 5% in just the past year, according to Leket Israel – The National Food Bank. That number might sound small until you add it to the cumulative hikes of the previous years. Israelis are now paying dozens of shekels more for the same grocery basket they bought before the war.

“We’ve become one of the most expensive countries in the world,” warned Yesh Atid MK Meir Cohen during the session.

“That’s a fact,” he declared bluntly, calling on both coalition and opposition lawmakers to “set aside politics” and address the plight of the 22% of Israelis now living below the poverty line, many of whom cannot afford even basic food staples.

While most of the Knesset voted themselves a raise, Israeli nurses, teachers and other essential workers have had to take a pay-cut.

Add in that now food prices in Israel have been rising at an alarming rate and there is cause for anger & concern.https://t.co/wrCh7sDG5O

— The Judean (@TheJudean) May 6, 2025

Numbers That Tell the Story

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), Israel’s key inflation gauge, rose 2.5% year-on-year in September, staying within the Bank of Israel’s 1.0–3.0% target range but doing little to ease the pain at the checkout counter.

Month to month, prices actually fell by 0.58%, but the relief is superficial: the drop reflects temporary adjustments in specific sectors, not a structural correction.

Breakdown of major categories:

• Food: +3.0% year-on-year (down slightly from +3.5% in August)

• Education, Culture & Entertainment: +2.8% (down from +3.8%)

• Transportation & Communication: +2.5% (up from +2.3%)

• Clothing & Footwear: -5.9% (up slightly from -6.7%)

Meanwhile, core inflation, excluding volatile components like fuel and produce, stood at 2.6%, signaling that underlying cost pressures remain stubbornly high.

A Tale of Two Israels

Israel’s economy is showing textbook signs of divergence:

• For the upper and middle classes, the war has meant rising defense stocks, robust tech exports, and stable employment in key sectors.

• For the working poor and lower-middle class, it has meant empty refrigerators, shrinking pensions, and rationed grocery lists.

What used to be a “middle-class inconvenience” has now become a national crisis.

Political Fallout: A Coalition in Denial

Today’s empty seats at the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee were more than symbolic, they were a visual metaphor for a coalition increasingly detached from the pulse of ordinary Israelis.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government, besieged by legal reforms, war management, and coalition infighting, has all but ceded the domestic agenda.

As one opposition aide put it privately:

“They can find time to rewrite the judiciary but not to show up for bread and milk.”

The political cost of that indifference is mounting. With elections looming in 2026, Israelis are watching closely, and they are not forgetting who stood with them when their supermarket bills doubled, and who didn’t even show up to the meeting.