Thursday, June 02, 2011

Regulation is Not Kosher

RL sends an interesting article, about Israeli and Palestinian meats.

Excerpt: In a recent report, the state comptroller wrote that the cost to Palestinian importers of importing refrigerated fresh meat is about 10% of the cost to their Israeli counterparts. What is the reason for that gigantic difference? Two reasons, says the comptroller: the high cost of kosher slaughter abroad, and a 190% tax Israel imposes on imported fresh meat. No such tax is applied to meat imported into the Palestinian Authority.

For instance, a Palestinian importer pays $1.55 per kilo of fresh fillet, while the Israeli importer pays $11.80 for the same cut of meat: 7.6 times more.


The answer to the problem: get rid of the stupid law. (Yes, this is usually my answer to problems, but it would work!) If Israel is a secular state (and in some sense it has to be), why not allow import of all (safe) meat, and then let kosher butcher shops do the work they have done for thousands of years? Under the current system, consumers pay too much, and eat meat that is not only not kosher, but of unknown and possibly unsafe origin.

No comments: