Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog is drafting a plan to distribute food to the country's neediest citizens.

"It is a social stain on the state that only nonprofit organizations distribute food and the government has abandoned the arena," Herzog says.

The minister has formed a team headed by his director general, Nahum Itskovitz, to collect data on the number of impoverished, nonprofit activity in this area and solutions implemented in other countries.

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Herzog plans to bring together representatives of food banks, local government, the Finance Ministry and academics to define the state's role in food distribution.

Among the options being considered are issuing food stamps and buying surpluses from foodstuffs manufacturers and farmers for distribution to the poor - both methods already in place in the U.S. Herzog hopes to include the food distribution plan in the 2008 state budget.

"I am pushing for a change in the agenda and plan to be a balanced and reasonable social force in the cabinet ahead of the next budget debates," Herzog says.

Herzog's plan is a sharp turnaround from state policy in recent years and stands at odds with the approach favored by professionals in the welfare and finance ministries, who believe the state should support its impoverished citizens through stipends and subsidized social services such as education and health.

Herzog was inspired to create the roundtable by a High Court of Justice petition filed by aid group Latet, which asked the court to rule that the state must ensure the basic subsistence of its weakest population, including distributing food to the 200,000 families that currently rely on nonprofits for their survival.

The February appeal argued it is not the role of hundreds of voluntary organizations financed by private donations to feed the state's citizens. Latet director Eran Weintraub told Herzog about the activities of the private relief organizations and their difficulties in meeting the tremendous need. Weintraub said food banks currently distribute NIS 200 million in food annually, or 0.7 percent of the state budget. In contrast, the United States invests $37 billion annually in its food stamps program, 1.4 percent of its national budget.

Herzog agrees that handling the provision cannot be left up to the hundreds of nonprofits alone, saying "it is unclear they can meet the need or how." Herzog believes the High Court petition should be a catalyst to in-depth discussion defining the extent of the state's obligations.

Last week, Herzog told the Justice Ministry that the welfare ministry, and not the treasury, will direct the drafting of a state response to the Latet petition. In a meeting before Herzog's intervention, representatives of the justice and welfare ministries and the treasury agreed the state should ask the court to reject the case. The state asked for an extension until May 22 to file its response.

"I invite all the entities involved to a rational dialogue out of court because this is a question of outlook regarding the state's relationship with its citizens and not a subject for the High Court," Herzog said.

However, Latet, which provides food to about a hundred nonprofit organizations, is seeking a binding and declarative statement from the court because it does not believe Herzog's initiative will transform the state's treatment of the matter.

"We welcome the minister's initiative for public debate, but we have had enough promises and the time has come for the state to take responsibility for handling poverty, including food for the poor," Weintraub counters.

In recent years, Weintraub has studied various food provision programs implemented in other countries. One of his proposed plans is based on talks with representatives of the food industry, who estimate that they destroy NIS 800 million to NIS 1.2 billion in surplus foodstuffs annually.

If the state undertook the logistics of collecting this food and distributing it to the needy, it would meet the entire need, Weintraub says.