While Israelis in the Galilee and all over Israel have come together to aid the war effort, it seems as if the Government of Israel, and especially the officials at the Finance Ministry, are on a different planet.

After two weeks of war, employers and workers are beginning to ask who is going to pay salaries for the last two weeks, when almost no work was done since the security situation prompted the army to order a third of Israel to stay in bunkers or safe rooms.

Populist members of Knesset have already enacted a law that forbids employers to fire workers who did not show up for work because they had to stay in bunkers, but they have not addressed the question of who is going to pay for the two weeks in which  no work was done.

By Israeli law, if an area is declared a "war zone," employers pay the salaries of the workers and the government reimburses the employers. But, and this is where the obtuse officials of the Ministry of Finance come in, the ministry has blocked all efforts to declare Haifa and Tiberias "war zones" so that the government will not have to pay compensation for war damages. "Let's talk about this after the war is over," they told the mayor of Haifa, who has threatened to go to the Supreme Court over the issue.

The height of hutzpa is in the realm of payment for damages caused by direct hits on property (for example, rebuilding the roof of a house after a katyusha rocket lands on it). According to the law, war damages are not covered by insurance but by the government. But, as it now turns out, the Finance Ministry officials have told the owners of damaged houses to "repair the building and then send us the bills." The homeowners, however, are wondering where they will find the money to cover the cost of the repairs meanwhile. They haven't been able to work, so they have no salary, a new law forbids the banks to allow people to overdraw their accounts, and the handymen refuse to do the repair work without a down payment. They know that the Finance Ministry's promise to pay is not something to be trusted.

This situation  is especially hard on people with no fixed income. And so old women in Safed and poor families in Tiberias are sitting in their windowless, blown-up houses and guarding their belongings, since they do not have the means to fix the damages.

Two weeks into the war, anti-government anger in Israel is mounting. While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declares that the IDF has all the time in the world to finish its battle against the Hizbullah, the mayors of the towns and regional councils under attack have issued an ultimatum to the army and to the government this evening. They declared, "We are not ready to hold out for more than a few more days!" What neither the Hizbullah nor all the enemies of Israel combined could do, the officials of the Finance Ministry have managed to do: Put a limit on the Israelis' ability to hold out.