Gush Katif: Fighting, and Possibly Winning, on Two Fronts, by Hillel Fendel (Israel National News)
Excerpts;
MKs Ariel and Yitzchaki hope their bill for a billion shekels in compensation-increases for the expellees will be brought up for a Knesset vote next week. Some residents are trying another route.
Most of the nearly 1,700 families thrown out of their homes in Gush Katif 16 months ago have still not received the promised financial compensation to help them rebuild their lives. The residents say matters are being held up not only by regular old-fashioned bureaucracy, but by the restrictiveness of the Evacuation-Compensation Law that was passed shortly before the expulsion.
MKs Uri Ariel (National Union) and Avigdor Yitzchaki (Kadima) hope to change that. They have prepared a package of changes they demand in the law – and expect to bring their bill for its first-reading vote in the Knesset next Tuesday. The total proposed additional cost to the government for having destroyed Gush Katif and its 1,700 homes: another one billion shekels ($238 million).
Though the coalition officially opposes the bill, the coalition whip is none other than the bill’s co-sponsor, Avigdor Yitzchaki. Both Yitzchaki and Ariel have been engaged in much behind-the-scenes discussion, hoping to avoid a political fight along coalition-
opposition lines.Just over half the Knesset Members – including many in the coalition – have promised their support, but the sponsors are taking nothing for granted. The bill was to have been raised two days ago in the government’s ministerial legislation committee – but this potential clash was averted by holding yet another meeting between the Prime Minister’s Bureau’s Director Raanan Dinur and MK Ariel.
“We prefer to talk more and solve more things by agreement,” Ariel’s aide Bari Rosenfeld told Arutz-7. “The PM’s office now realizes that we have a majority, and that’s why they’re willing to talk with us. For our part, we want to have as much of a consensus as possible, so that we won’t be in for any last-minute surprises.”
The new bill proposes the following changes, among others:
– Reduction of waiting time for compensation
– Full compensation for relocating a business
– Farmers’ compensation for loss of income and for hothouses
– Restrictions on the various eligibility committees to prevent them from holding up compensation
– Changes of definitions in the terms “residence” and others, so that some residents are not prevented from receiving compensation for technicalities
– Eligibility for private and public renters
– Recognition of children’s rights in families that lived as renters, such as yeshiva families
– Increasing “adjustment period” payments
– Retirement benefits for farmers and others who cannot find work, beginning at age 46 [the MKs’ opening position].
Construction Will Heal All (or Most)
At the same time, many former Gush Katif residents are not relying only on politicians, but are taking the initiative themselves.
Click here to continue reading Anita Tucker’s words about construction.