Israel Matzav

State Commission of Inquiry blasts government handling of Gush Katif expellees

A State Commission of Inquiry issued a 488-page report on Tuesday that blasted the government's handling of the Gaza and Northern Samaria expulsion.

Five years later, the State Commission of Inquiry into the Handling of the Evacuees from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria by the Authorized Authorities found a large gap between the rhetoric and action involved in the treatment of people from 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in northern Samaria.

“Many of the ministries viewed the mission of rehabilitating the evacuees as just another routine matter laid upon their desks, and they set their own agenda for handling it,” stated the 488-page report presented in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Five years since they lost their homes, according to the report, more than 70 percent of the evacuees still live in temporary dwellings. The report charged that part of the delay was caused by ordinary government bureaucracy.

“The picture formed by the testimony is very worrisome and requires mobilization at the national level to change the situation,” said the report.

Evacuees paid the price for needless bureaucratic obstacles, such as cabinet and Knesset Finance Committee approval for the budgeting of even small amounts of money. They also faced overly “rigid adherence” to tender laws, disputes between ministries, and lack of flexibility and creativity in resolving problems, it said.

The report also charged that in some cases government decisions had simply not been implemented. For example, the 2004 decision to forgive the evacuees’ debts to the World Zionist Organization’s settlement division was frozen until 2008, and was implemented only recently.

A word of explanation is probably in order here about how housing gets built. You've all heard how there won't be new construction in Ramat Shlomo for 'at least two years.' I don't believe that people are actually signing contracts for those apartments yet, but often it is the case that you do sign up that far in advance.

Often, to get government-built housing, you must sign up on paper. It takes some time to get accepted and then some more time until you get a contract and then way too long (2-3 years) to actually build. When we bought our apartment in a new section of Jerusalem, we signed up in January 1992 (a few months after we made aliya to Israel), went to contract in late 1993 (and had to pay the first payment before we even signed a contract!) and moved into our apartment in mid-1996. In the interim, we had to pay rent on the place in which we were actually living, and once we stopped paying cash, we had mortgage payments. But at least we had jobs. Most of the people who were expelled from their homes also lost their jobs at the same time (because they worked within those towns).

The next few paragraphs ought to give pause to those who - incredibly - still believe that Israel can just expel people from their homes in an instant.

In examining other matters, the report said the five-month period between the enactment of the Disengagement Implementation Law and the evacuation itself had not given the evacuees enough time to properly plan their temporary living arrangements.

“This affected both the cost of construction and the quality of the structures, as well as the conditions of the contracts that were hastily signed with receiving settlements,” stated the report regarding modular housing.

The tight timing also meant that evacuees were initially placed in hotels – at great cost to the state and emotional suffering for the families – instead of being transferred directly to the modular homes.

The report also criticized the expellees for not cooperating - did they really expect that people who were being expelled from their homes would leave willingly? As much resistance as there was to leaving five years ago, if God forbid an Israeli government decides to do the same thing again in other parts of the country, the resistance from the residents will be much greater.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:50 AM