Despite the objections of Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan, a Knesset committee yesterday voted in favor of paving a new road from the Druze town of Daliat al-Carmel that would run through Carmel National Park.
The Knesset Interior and Environmental Protection Committee will ask the Interior Ministry to construct the road westward to the coastal plain. Over the past few years, portions of it have been built illegally as far as the communities of Nir Etzion and Ein Hod. However, after the huge fire on Mount Carmel in December 2010, which came very close to some of the town's homes, Daliat al-Carmel Mayor Carmel Nasser al-Din demanded that a proper road be built to connect the community to north-south Route 4 to the west.
The road would be an escape route for the town's inhabitants in case of a future fire and would also ease the heavy traffic in and out of the Druze town, discussion of the subject by the committee revealed.
Druze MKs have warned that if a proper road is not built, they will see that a road is paved even without permits.
The Daliat al-Carmel Local Council has so far failed to overcome opposition by ecological groups to the paving of a road. Therefore MK Ayoob Kara, who is also deputy minister for the development of the Negev and the Galilee, asked the Knesset Interior and Environmental Protection Committee to take action.
Another 1.2 kilometers would have to be paved to complete the road, which would go through Carmel National Park.
"Why doesn't the state care about the fate of its population?" If the people in our town were named Moshe and Alon, we would have had a road a long time ago," Nasser a-Din told the committee, using two common Israeli Jewish first names.
"The next time there is a fire, do they want us to burn to death?" Nasser al-Din asked.
However, a member of Kibbutz Nir Etzion, Yaron Naor, also present at the meeting, countered that during the 2010 fire the whole area was wrapped in smoke, so a new road would not have helped anyone escape.
Nasser al-Din told the committee that after the previous major fire on Mount Carmel in the 1980s, the paving of a road to the coast was recommended to allow access for fire and rescue teams but nothing was done about it.
Nasser al-Din also said that "two powerful bodies were standing in the way of construction of the road. The greens are afraid it will harm nature, and the coastal communities are afraid it will harm their quality of life."
MK Majallie Whbee (Kadima ) said: "We want to obey the law, but if they challenge us, I'll get on a bulldozer myself and pave the road and other Druze Knesset members will be by my side."
The Transportation Ministry representative at the meeting, Philip Paran, said the ministry supported the construction of the road and had earmarked NIS 4 million to the project. But he also said it was not within the purview of his ministry to initiate plans for road construction.
Erdan informed Kara about 10 days ago that he was opposed to the road. Such a road would "attract traffic that would cross through the heart of Carmel National Park and seriously and irreversibly damage the ecosystem," said the environmental protection minister.
Erdan also said work on the existing unpaved road carried out after the fire made it passable to fire and rescue vehicles.
Daliat al-Carmel's municipal engineer, Salman Nasser a-Din, told the committee that "not a single tree will have to be uprooted because of [construction of the road]."
The Hof Hacarmel Regional Council, on the western side of the Carmel range, is also opposed to the road because, its deputy chairman, Modi Bracha, said: "It will create intolerable traffic in the communities of Nir Etzion and Ein Hod," The road also passed too close to schools and Orthodox communities, and will harm their Sabbath observance, he said.
However Nasser al-Din countered that his city had done surveys that showed that only about 200 cars would use the road on weekends. He insisted that the road was an escape route, and accuse the Hof Hacarmel Regional Council of a "lack of good neighborliness." He also said the opposition of the coastal communities "reeked of racism."
State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss is to include criticism of access and escape routes in his report on the 2010 fire. If the road is not paved following the release of the report, Nasser al-Din said, his community would take the matter to court.
