America-Israel Patent Law Blog

In the first half of 2020, particularly around Passover, there were shortages of butter in Israel. Given the centralized production of milk in Israel, what is surprising isn't that there were butter shortages, but that there haven't been more in the 31 years I've been living here.

In response, the state lifted the import tariffs of 140-160% on imported butter. But that was a temporary measure: the tariffs are scheduled to come back into force on January 1, 2022. Rather than letting this opportunity to do some good slip through its fingers, the government (now led by Bennett, rather than Netanyahu, on whose watch the tariffs were originally removed) has now announced its intention to make the lifting of tariffs on butter permanent.  Good thing this is being done by order of a minister rather than by a vote in the Knesset, otherwise Likud would vote against it b/c the coalition is for it.

Maybe the state will next stop controlling ownership of beehives and production of honey.