Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has overturned a planned 20 percent budget cut to the funds allotted for benefits granted to new immigrants, Army Radio reported Friday.

The heads of rights groups representing new immigrants to Israel criticized the government's declared intention to limit the absorption basket, a list of benefits granted to new immigrants. The chairman of an Ethiopian immigrants' rights group said that the budget cut represents a blatant disregard for the plight of the poor immigrants.

The head of OLEI (Organizacion Latino Americana en Israel), a rights group representing Latin American immigrants, said that there is no point in encouraging Latin American Jews to immigrate to Israel if the government doesn't have anything to offer to them upon their arrival.

	Advertisement

"Let's recall all the Jewish Agency representatives from around the world, let them halt their work, because we can't in good conscience mislead the new immigrants. I can't tell a Latin American citizen 'come to Israel, we will promise a serious [benefit] plan.' I don't want to cheat them," the head of O.L.E.I. told Army Radio.

The treasury is scheduled to submit the budget plan to the prime minister in two weeks.