Israel Matzav

Lapid burns

With Yair Lapid out as finance minister, the Knesset Finance Committee has released funding to the Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria. Lapid, who was holding up the money, is furious, and has labeled the release 'bribery.' (He didn't really think he was going to get any votes from the 'settlers,' did he?

Yesh Atid is outraged at the request of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to transfer additional funds via the Finance Committee to regional councils in Judea-Samaria, the party said in a statement on Monday.

"This is an election bribery - this is an inappropriate course of action in a democratic state," the party stated, asking the Knesset's Legal Advisory to intervene over the issue.

Budgetary transfers to the regional councils had been frozen for months by Finance Minister and Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid, who was sacked from his ministerial position last week and whose party left the coalition in a dramatic political move.

Lapid's dismissal has finally paved the way for tens of cash-strapped communities in the region to receive their funds, leaving leftists livid.

But the issue is not the only budgetary transfer finally on the table with Lapid's dismissal; the Finance Committee is expected to make decisions on dozens of requests for government funding Monday in Lapid's wake.

Rumor has it that the man behind the transfers is that 'settler' lover, Moshe 'Boogie' Yaalon. 
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon may be easing up on his own crackdown on Judea and Samaria, it was revealed Monday, after leaks from closed conversations Ya'alon had with unnamed officials indicated his support for lifting a freeze on funds to Judea-Samaria regional councils.

"Our goal should be the immediate release of funds for the development of settlements in Judea and Samaria, and I am working to do this," Ya'alon allegedly stated. "These funds former Finance Minister Yair Lapid held for political reasons, and now they [the Knesset - ed.] have to release these funds."

Ya'alon's statements surfaced just as the Knesset Finance Committee announced that funds for Judea-Samaria regional councils had been unfrozen, after months of an on-and-off freeze instituted by Lapid for political purposes. 

...

The report, if true, also shows a sharp reversal in Ya'alon's policies thus far. The Defense Minister has been personally behind the continuation of a military seizure of the Yitzhar Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva [Torah academy - ed.] and froze funds for a project to build new housing for IDF soldiers over 1949 Armistice lines just last week.

Heh. 

Labels: Israeli Knesset, Judea and Samaria construction, Knesset elections 2015, Moshe Yaalon, settlements, Yair Lapid

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:32 PM