"Some
commentators predicted a gradual shift in the national debate to a more divisive
question: whether state subsidies for large ultra-Orthodox Jewish families,
religious institutions and settlements in the occupied West Bank should be
redirected toward funding better services for the general
public. Protest
leaders, who have called for national unity, have largely steered clear of that
issue. But Nahum Barnea,
a popular political columnist, said anger over those politically-charged
allocations helped fuel the demonstrations."