Government's financial neglect may cause collapse of Galilee communities 
By Relly Sa'ar

The Sharon government vowed when it entered office 18 months ago to strengthen the Galilee and invest resources in its development. But the government's budgetary policy may lead to the collapse of dozens of local authorities in the Galilee, serving two-thirds of its population, warns a report issued by the Prime Minister's Office.

The government's guidelines, issued on February 26, 2003, declared that the Galilee will be placed at the top of the national order of priorities. The government promised to strengthen the Galilee's communities, allocate more funds to them and advance their education system and needy population.

But these grand declarations were not backed by actions. A 146-page report issued by the PMO's coordination division and recently presented to director general Ilan Cohen, finds that Sharon's government discriminates against the Galilee in investments.

"The Galilee has lost its place on the national agenda and among the highest rank of policy makers," says the report.

Amir Weiss, who wrote the report, examined all the budgets the government invested in the last 18 months. He finds that the Galilee is deprived despite the government's promises.

Two-thirds of the Galilee's residents are at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, have large families and their communities are graded by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) as 1-4 out of 10. About half of them - 46 percent - are Arabs.

The unemployment rate in the Galilee is some 50 percent higher than the national one. Despite the critical unemployment, the Industry, Trade and Employment Ministry invested NIS 13 million in the Galilee this year - 10 percent of its budget - while the Galilee's population (1.146 million) makes up 17 percent of the overall population.

The Galilee was named a national priority area, but the report finds that the data indicate "a trend of increasing the gaps between the center and the periphery" in education, infrastructure, industrial development and employment. "The opposite trend of narrowing the gaps should have been set," the report says.

The budget gaps between what the Galilee should get according to its population proportion and as a national priority region, and the budgets it actually received, are termed "negative budgeting" by the report.

One of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's central objectives is to strengthen the Galilee's Jewish community. This goal has not been implemented in his present term of office.

"The decision makers are consciously blocking the Galilee's population increase," the report says, noting that this increase was to derive from the policy of allocating housing mortgages and grants, and investments in urban construction.

The report says the Housing Ministry's investment policy in the Galilee this year "will have a negative influence on the ability to create a new reserve of apartments, and the extent of activity will be reduced by 50 percent."

Since the mortgage grants to eligible families were also under-budgeted by 16 percent, the report concludes that the percentage of Jewish population in the Galilee is expected to dwindle.

Education and higher education investments are called investments for valuable human resources. Their role in catapulting the economy is vital, according to experts. According to the report, there are no "powerful engines" to attract a strong population from the center of the country to the Galilee - such as a university, a national research institute, a concentration of high-tech companies etc. Although there are a few successful "engines" in tourism, agriculture and rural construction, they are no substitute to a "powerful engine."

The higher education institutions in the Galilee were very much deprived when it came to budgets, suffering a negative budgeting of 22 percent. The allocations of the Education Ministry this year failed "to close the existing gaps in the minority sectors," says the report.

The report criticizes the drastic 28 percent cut in budget balancing grants. No budget was allocated by the Interior Ministry for development, infrastructure and its maintenance.

All the local authorities at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, which include all the Arab communities and most of the Jewish ones in the Galilee cannot exist without these balancing grants. The government's budgetary policy, of reducing the balancing grants and canceling the development budgets, "could lead to the final collapse" of the 59 weakest authorities in the Galilee, which are home to 764,000 people, making up two-thirds of the Galilee's population.

The report recommends, among other things, that the government make the Galilee a national project. The Jewish Agency will conduct a fund-raising campaign among Jewish communities to promote projects and a committee will recommend opening a research university, a research institute or a high-tech park in the Galilee.

The report says Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must allocate an additional NIS 1.5 billion over five years, and the ministries must increase budgets to the Galilee proportionately to population.

Galilee is Arab

Some 1,146,000 people live in the Galilee, making up 17 percent of Israel's population. Nearly half of them, some 540,000, are Arab.

Almost half of the population, some 540,000, are Arab.

Some 572,000, live in towns such as Tiberias, Kiryat Shmona, Sakhnin, Safed and Afula. Another 35 percent, some 395,000, live under the authority of local councils like Hazor Haglilit, Kfar Vradim, Katzrin, Menahemia, Boue'ina-Nujidat and Tuba-Zangria.

Some 179,000 belong to the areas under regional councils such as Misgave, Mevo'ot Hermon, Upper and Lower Galilee, Emek Jezreel and Al-Batuf.

Two-thirds of the residents belong to the lower rungs of 1-4 on the socio-economic ladder. Kfar Vradim is the only prosperous community in the Galilee and is graded 9 in the national socio-economic ladder. Seven Jewish communities are graded in places 1-4: Hatzor Haglilit, Gilboa and Ma'aleh Yosef and the cities Tiberias, Beit Shean, Migdal Ha'emek, Ma'alot Tarshiha, Acre and Safed. Almost all the Arab communities - 52 towns, local and regional councils - are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. The only Arab communities placed in the middle of the ladder on rungs 5-7 are Ma'iliyah, Gush Halav (Jish) and Kafr Kama.

Mayor Buchbut: Sharon doesn't give a fig about Galilee

"The Galilee report written in the Prime Minister's Office is a disgrace to the government of Israel," Shlomo Buchbut, mayor of Ma'alot-Tarshiha and chair of the Confrontation Line Forum, said yesterday.

He said the report is in keeping with his reiterated contention that "Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who always claimed to be in favor of the settlements, blew it in a big way in the Galilee."

Buchbut said "the government has cut itself off from the Galilee and is investing most of its budgets in the small area between Gedera and Hadera. Buchbut, of Labor, said "Sharon received a majority of the Galilee communities' vote and now he he treats them with contempt, relying on the public's short memory to forget his promises to the Galilee."

Ma'alot's 18,000 Jewish inhabitants and Tarshiha's 4,000 Arab inhabitants are in a difficult socio-economic situation.

Buchbut accused Sharon of backing Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in slashing some NIS 270 million in Interior Ministry allocations. Despite high unemployment, there is hardly any budget for training the unemployed and the government's policy drives away potential investors, whose investments in industry could reduce unemployment, he said.

"While the construction in the Galilee has ceased almost completely, a tender to build 1,000 housing units in the West Bank has been issued. The policy of strengthening the West Bank and losing the Galilee is wrong," he said.

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