Last update - 00:00 24/12/2007
Lack of gov't funds for securing southern homes angers MKs
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent
The government decided Sunday to approve a budget for an anti-rocket defense system, but did not allot funds to reinforce the homes of Sderot-area residents, an omission that has angered some Knesset members.
The Knesset Interior and Environment Committee is scheduled to hold a special session Wednesday, hours before the Knesset votes on the state budget, to discuss allocating funds to protect Sderot residents from rocket attacks.
Committee chairman MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) and MK Shai Hermesh (Kadima), considered to be an Ehud Olmert loyalist, are pushing a bill that would make the government reinforce the homes of residents of Sderot and neighboring areas that don't already have reinforced, secure rooms.
"The residents of Sderot have become hostages in a political struggle within the cabinet, between the two central players: the prime minister and the defense minister," said Hermesh, a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. "Why are they waiting until there are more deaths?"
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last week that the homes of residents on the front line of the Qassam-rocket attacks should be protected, but he left the budget request for Prime Minister Olmert to make.
Hermesh, who has pushed the issue of reinforcing homes in the south since he became an MK in May, 2006, had put the bill on ice and voted for the 2007 state budget after being assured that Olmert would allot a portion of it to protect Sderot-area residents. Now he says he feels betrayed.
"There was an act of fraud here, taking advantage of my belief in the system," said Hermesh. "The prime minister violated his commitment, and the result is a forfeit of the safety of the residents of Sderot and Gaza-area communities."
Olmert's bureau said the promise was made before he had all the information about the anti-rocket system, which costs the same NIS 1.5 billion as reinforcing all the homes. A final decision on the NIS 300-million proposal for partial home reinforcement will be made in January.
Hermesh commented that the anti-rocket defense system was not a sufficient response to the Qassam rocket fire on southern Israel.
"That is a strategic response to all the rocket threats, but until it happens there won't be anyone to protect in those communities," he said.
Hermesh asked Barak at a defense budget subcommittee meeting yesterday why the government has not allotted funding for reinforcing homes in the south. Barak responded that he doesn't have the NIS 320 million to allocate.
Pines-Paz said he doesn't think the budget can be passed without resolving the issue of reinforcing Sderot-area homes, and added that it is disadvantaged people who suffer most from houses that cannot withstand to rocket attacks:
"Those left without protection are the poor and the pensioners who live in old houses," he said.
Homes built since 1992 are built with reinforced rooms, in keeping with a law passed after Iraq fired Scud rockets at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
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