The Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria will receive 36 million shekels (just over $10 million) in the 2013 budget, as compensation for losses they incurred during a ten-month freeze on construction that was imposed upon them at the insistence of the Obama administration in late 2009.
The Knesset's Finance Committee decided to transfer the funds to the Ministry of Interior, in a Wednesday session. “The freeze on construction created costs for the authorities in these areas, which had relied on fees and budgets that were supposed to be received from building projects that wre not carried out, in the end,” the committee explained.
In addition, the authorities in Judea and Samaria will receive 10 million shekels as a grant for security, and 4.5 million shekels as a development grant.
The committee decided to transfer 17 million shekels to the Ministry of Absorption. Of these, 7 million are earmarked for the Bnei Menashe, Indian Jews who claim descent from the Lost Tribe of Menashe.