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. Former celery farmer Anita Tucker, a 30-year veteran of Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif, writes,
"We are fighting a war for rehabilitation, for building anew, for being permitted to again be constructive creative people who build, contribute and make a difference in the Land of Israel, among the people of Israel...
"We can't win via the endless exhausting frustrating battle with our total dependency on the [Disengagement] commission and the Prime Minister's office's bureaucrats. Winning can only happen when we, together with our caring wonderful friends who are behind us in this war of survival and building anew, take things into our own hands. So the first major step [we took] was to buy caravans [mobile homes without wheels] for those whom the Disengagement commission claimed have no technical-legal rights to continue with the community.
"These young families - born in Gush Katif, grew up there, married there, had their own kids - continued living there until they were expelled. Their crime was that they happened to have rented privately and not from public rental housing... So we said, 'Forget the bureaucrats and their devotion to inflexibility! Our young families will not be thrown aside! Let's just buy caravans!'
"These young families are now living with us as an integral part of the community. Amazing caring people wrote checks directly to buy these homes, and the families are in them. Simple, no bureaucracy, no fees - nothing but pure direct chesed [kindness] with a big personal direct hug that gives tremendous strength to the givers and receivers, and no doubt makes some dramatic vibrations upwards in the heavens as well...
"...My two sons, who were second-generation organic farmers in Gush Katif, and three other friends from Netzer Hazani, took their down payment on home compensation, together with my own silent partnership in it as well, and invested in partnered land in the Jordan Valley. They put up greenhouses, planted organic peppers and plum cherry tomatoes, and have begun picking delicious vegetables. Yes, it is not our land, it is an hour-and-a-quarter drive, it is not where our permanent home will be - but it's a reason to get up in the morning, it is productive and constructive! As I walk between the tall tomato plants and inhale their intoxicating odor, I know that we have accomplished a small victory over the destruction. The problems aren't simple: we planted a bit late in the season, the land is a bit different than we are used to, etc. - but this is small stuff for people with the challenges we've seen these last years. I left the greenhouses more certain than ever that this is the right approach to victory in this war...
"The only healing treatment for destruction is construction. I can fight the battle of bureaucracy and the lack of caring forever, and perhaps I will succeed in obtaining some compromise with a promise. I will feel victory in the battle - but this is still not the same as building anew..."
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. Former celery farmer Anita Tucker, a 30-year veteran of Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif, writes,
"We are fighting a war for rehabilitation, for building anew, for being permitted to again be constructive creative people who build, contribute and make a difference in the Land of Israel, among the people of Israel...
"We can't win via the endless exhausting frustrating battle with our total dependency on the [Disengagement] commission and the Prime Minister's office's bureaucrats. Winning can only happen when we, together with our caring wonderful friends who are behind us in this war of survival and building anew, take things into our own hands. So the first major step [we took] was to buy caravans [mobile homes without wheels] for those whom the Disengagement commission claimed have no technical-legal rights to continue with the community.
"These young families - born in Gush Katif, grew up there, married there, had their own kids - continued living there until they were expelled. Their crime was that they happened to have rented privately and not from public rental housing... So we said, 'Forget the bureaucrats and their devotion to inflexibility! Our young families will not be thrown aside! Let's just buy caravans!'
"These young families are now living with us as an integral part of the community. Amazing caring people wrote checks directly to buy these homes, and the families are in them. Simple, no bureaucracy, no fees - nothing but pure direct chesed [kindness] with a big personal direct hug that gives tremendous strength to the givers and receivers, and no doubt makes some dramatic vibrations upwards in the heavens as well...
"...My two sons, who were second-generation organic farmers in Gush Katif, and three other friends from Netzer Hazani, took their down payment on home compensation, together with my own silent partnership in it as well, and invested in partnered land in the Jordan Valley. They put up greenhouses, planted organic peppers and plum cherry tomatoes, and have begun picking delicious vegetables. Yes, it is not our land, it is an hour-and-a-quarter drive, it is not where our permanent home will be - but it's a reason to get up in the morning, it is productive and constructive! As I walk between the tall tomato plants and inhale their intoxicating odor, I know that we have accomplished a small victory over the destruction. The problems aren't simple: we planted a bit late in the season, the land is a bit different than we are used to, etc. - but this is small stuff for people with the challenges we've seen these last years. I left the greenhouses more certain than ever that this is the right approach to victory in this war...
"The only healing treatment for destruction is construction. I can fight the battle of bureaucracy and the lack of caring forever, and perhaps I will succeed in obtaining some compromise with a promise. I will feel victory in the battle - but this is still not the same as building anew..."