Gush Katif Refugees, Yosef Q. Israeli to Olmert, Bassi, Regime: “Tell Me lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies?”

Ramon: Knesset Supports Convergence

Excerpt;

On Thursday, the head of Sela Disengagement Authority met with the director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office to evaluate the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria last August, and to assess the successes and failures of the evacuation.

Commentary;

The above link was only placed here for the excerpt which validates this blog’s headline as well introducing the reports, rebuttals and commentary below.

As to the premise of Justice Minister Haim Ramon’s comments regarding his distorted view of reality;

1/ As newly entering Justice Minister, one would think that he should be up to his eyeballs in alligators in his own ministry and not have time to enter into what is not germaine to the Justice Ministry.

2/ The operative phrase here is “the successes and failures of the evacuation”, i.e. Olmert, Bassi and company congratulating each other and patting themselves on the back for;

– All of the compensation NOT paid to the refugee families,

– The terribly slip-shod and disgraceful job they did placing the refugees in various venues and thwn threatening them with eviction every other day or week,

– The slip-shod and disgraceful total lack of workmanship in the construction of the Caravillas in the south,

– The abrogation of their solemn responsibility to protect the residents of these Caravilla towns, as well as residents of S’derot, Ashkelon, etc. from Kassam bombardment, i.e. their abject failure to go after the human launchers of the Kassams whereever they may be or live, instead bombing empty fields

– The apparent deliberate methodology by which so far, they have successfully evaded remitance of compensation to the Gush Katif refugees; i.e. the outrageous and unrealistic demands of proof of residency, proofs of parenthood, etc. made by the regime and its SELA to validate compensation payment.

To quote Rachel Saperstein as published in “Mishpacha Magazine” (issue
106 dated May 3, 2006, “Forgotten Refugees”, page 38, not available online)

“Try to prove you’ve lived in a town for 27 years, when electricity and phone bills are only stored seven years back on their computer systems… The Interior Ministry has a detailed file on every one of us. They don’t need our children’s report cards to prove our residency… Can you think of more insidious harrassment than demanding families do DNA tests to prove parenthood? … They are trying to make our lives as difficult as possible, to send out a message that this is what’s going to happen to everyone who doesn’t cooperate with future expulsions — remember, Olmert is talking about another 80,000 people …”

And the Gush Katif refugees are not alone in expressing disgust at the government’s handling of compenstion issues, faulty slip-shod construction of refugee housing, etc. Minister of Tourism Yitzhak Herzog, number 2 in the Labor Party, stated the following while expressing concern about the Arab perception of a ‘prize for terror’; “the State prepared the disengagement in a boorish manner and set inhuman standards with extreme bureaucratic requirements on the families.”

This methodology of throwing deliberately insurmountable obstacles in the way of the refugees when, in fact, SELA already had sufficient readily-available information to validate everyone may well account for the fact that the Government of Israel entered 2006 with a 1.8 billion shekel 2005 budget surplus and have accumulated a 7.9 billion shekel surplus over the first 3 months of 2006.

In addition, there is a great body of data existing regarding conflicting information between authoritative independent sources and the Government of Israel and its SELA dating back to the inception of the Geirush. Much of this data and conflicting information can be viewed in the series of reports put out by “Israel Behind the News” which can be viewed here and here. A vast body of data also exists onthis blog. MB

SELA Disengagement Authority Report [No Employment Data Included]
(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Excerpts;

Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Director-General Ilan Cohen and SELA Disengagement Authority Director Yonatan Basi yesterday (Wednesday), 10.5.06, convened all those professional elements who participated in implementing the Disengagement Plan for a staff discussion on summarizing the process.

The following issues were discussed: Preparations by Government ministries and the security establishment on civilian issues, the advance legislative process, the stages of the evacuation, permanent and temporary housing, coordination among the various relevant bodies, the need for oversight of the process and the need for checks and balances vs. the Government’s need for flexibility of action, how the Government can deal with a lack of cooperation by residents and with uncertainty, and coordination between the SELA Disengagement Authority and the other Government and security establishment bodies.

It was reported that over 80% of the families have maintained their communal frameworks. It was emphasized that the challenge now facing the Government is to lead these communities to permanent housing, while maintaining their community frameworks. In the past seven months, approximately 1,200 new housing units have been built for evacuees at 24 sites throughout the country. Over 3,500 claims for compensation have been dealt with; most families have received full compensation. The Ministerial Committee on Assisting the Residents of the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria made over 130 decisions that were carried out in full.

PMO Dir.-Gen. Cohen and SELA Disengagement Authority Director Basi instructed the professional elements to continue investigating matters in depth in order to submit the necessary lessons to the decision-makers.

‘Most Gaza Evacuees Compensated’

Full Text;

Following the disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria in August, 2005, most of the evacuated families have received full compensation and over 80 percent of them have managed to maintain their communal settings, Disengagement Authority (Sela) Director Yonathan Basi told the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday.

Basi informed PMO Director Ilan Cohen that in the past seven months approximately 1,200 new housing units have been constructed at 24 sites throughout the country. Moreover, the Authority dealt with over 3,500 claims for compensation.

The challenge facing the government at the moment, Sela said, was the need to resettle the evacuated families in permanent housing, while maintaining the communal networks they had in their original settlements.

The meeting, convened to review the massive operation that relocated thousands of people and redesigned Israel’s borders, also discussed such matters as logistics and advanced planning for the operation by elements such as the defense establishment and legislative bodies.

The attendants also deliberated on the need for checks and balances versus the government’s need for flexibility of action. They considered courses of action to deal with residents’ lack of cooperation and uncertainty.

Cohen and Basi instructed the professional elements to continue investigating matters in depth in order to submit the necessary conclusions to the decision-makers.

These lessons will be particularly useful if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert implements his convergence plan, aimed at defining Israel’s final borders along the West Bank, relocating tens of thousands of settlers in the process.

The government’s current plans for implementing the convergence, whose timeframe has not yet been clearly defined, includes constructing all of the housing solutions ahead of the settlers’ relocation so that the process would only include moving them from their current residence to their new homes.

From: Anita Tucker
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 5:37 PM

Subject: Misuse of Words and Figures to Confuse and Mislead Readers in Prime Ministers Media Report

Note in the official PM media report my comments, how the PM media office play with the words and numbers to mislead the reader and thus cause blatant lies to appear as the truth without actually lying outright.

1. It says the meeting was convened to “summarize the process” – not to summarize the process up until now . This infers the process is basically over and now we have to begin planning for the new process for new “converged process ” DPs.

2. ”convened all the professional elements who participated in implementing the Disengagement Plan for a staff discussion to summarize the process.” i.e.They hint that they are summarizing in order to plan for future so this report infers that the lack of planning for GK people was because of the residents ”lack of cooperation” and the ”uncertainty” of needs as a result. This is a blatant lie -but it hints that in the future if gov’t doesn’t plan properly it will also be because of ”uncertainty” of needs -so don’t blame the gov’t next time either.

3. It says ”It was reported that over 80% of the families have maintained their communal frameworks” but it doesn’t say that this is in spite of the fact that the gov’t made no preparation to prepare for communities and that the gov’t did all it could to prevent the communities from staying whole and finding communal solutions .Report doesn’t mention that each original community of 21 communities of GK(except for one ) is now thanks to the gov’ts help divided into two,three or more splinters and are struggling to keep these sub-communities together in spite of all gov’t efforts otherwise. However, it is true that “over 80% of the families have maintained their communal frameworks , but not exactly as shortened in heading of report that “Over 80% of Gaza evacuees maintain communities” which in this case is a very unclear generalization.

4. ‘In the past seven months, approximately 1,200 new housing units have been built for evacuees at 24 sites throughout the country. ”—1200 new permanent housing units or temporary caravillas? This is very not clear? Only we know it is caravillas -and though they were” built” it took ages before they could be livable

5. ”More than 3,500 claims for compensation have been dealt with;” not clear; 3500 out of 3500?, or perhaps the truth; 3500 out of at least 11,000 potential claims (approx.9000+ residents claims for years lived there + approx. 1500 for homes + approx. 650 for businesses. That means less than a third have been “dealt with” not necessarily resolved and paid. ” Dealt with might mean that the paper was moved from one desk to next???

6. ”most families have received full compensation”—most of which families???? Do they mean most of the families representing the 3500 claims mentioned ???? which could mean ”most” is 1751 out of 11,000 + potential claims for compensations. Perhaps they mean most of 11,000 —I doubt that!!.

7. ”The Ministerial Committee on Assisting the Residents of the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria made over 130 decisions that were carried out in full” Not too clear what this tell about the true situation.

8. ”in order to submit the necessary lessons to the decision-makers” -sure sounds like someone is planning to do these cruelties to new people.

Evacuees: State Trying to Trick Us

Sela Proposal Angers Elei Sinai Evacuees

Full Text;

A Sela Disengagement Authority proposal to relocate former residents of the Gaza Strip settlement of Elei Sinai to an apartment building in Ashkelon has angered the evacuees on Thursday.

The plan reportedly called for the former settlers to move temporarily into the apartment building, and after that take responsibility for their own permanent housing.

The evacuees have been living in a temporary camp at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai for the past seven months.

During that time, they have been seeking a permanent solution that would house all of them at Kibbutz Palmahim. They claimed that the arrangement with the kibbutz was nearing completion, Army Radio reported.