NOTHING TOO GOOD FOR THE SETTLERS: LUXURY ROADS ON THE WEST BANK
9/12/07
Recently, Shalom Akshav (Peace Now) issued a report on road construction to the West Bank settlements. It is another demonstration of the cost to Israeli society of maintaining settlements for approximately 3.5% of her population. In this instance, it costs lives.
Israel has long suffered from an epidemic of highway fatalities. On average, roughly 500 persons are killed on her roads each year, a number that can, of course, be deemphasized by citing population growth, kilometers traveled and other factors, or highlighted by comparing it to the much lower numbers of deaths attributable to war and terrorism. There are many factors governing the rate of traffic fatalities in particular countries, among them national culture, traffic enforcement, and drinking. However, it is undeniable that the condition of the highways plays a vital role. European nations including Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands have some of the best roads and the fewest fatalities. Central dividers are, for example, one simple method of reducing the number of head-on crashes and may cut the number of fatalities by half.
Israel understands this and the Transportation Minister promises to pursue the program of promoting safe highways providing “all the necessary means are received.” Thus, the Tel-Aviv – Haifa road and the Jerusalem – Tel-Aviv highway and others can be slowly improved if the budgets are not cut. Meanwhile, as the work drags on, needless deaths will occur. But, at the same time, large sums of money are being spent to build new roads to serve a few settlers.
Peace Now Secretary General, Yariv Oppenheimer, puts it this way: “The State spends at least $12,000 (50,000 NIS) for each settler’s vehicle, on infrastructure and new roads. While people in Israel get killed on a daily basis due to a shortage in funds for infrastructure, the settlers get luxury roads.” Separation barriers which were deemed not affordable for some of Israel’s main highways were constructed on a road in the southern Mount Hebron area. The High Court ordered the barrier dismantled when it found that it was built not to keep Palestinian cars off the road but to stop Palestinian shepherds from grazing their flocks close to settlements. The cost of building and then dismantling this “sheep barrier” was (80 million NIS) 18.5 million U.S. dollars.
One, particularly exasperating use of Israeli tax dollars, and one of the most costly projects underway is to the south east of Bethlehem. This is a road linking four small settlements with a total of 2500 people 500 cars will use this “Liberman Road”, so-called because one of the small band of settlers is Avigdor Liberman, who just happened to be Minister of Transportation when the project was initiated.
Peace Now’s study finds that current road construction projects on the West Bank require a minimum investment of $75,000,000 (315 million NIS). The share of investment devoted to West Bank roads in 2005 was 13.2% of the total highway budget and went as high as 17% in previous years. 33,279 settlers and 6390 vehicles will be served by the roads now under construction.
Nehemiah Strassler, economics editor of Haaretz sums up the matter: “It is true that not all Israelis drive carefully, responsibly and ‘in keeping with road conditions.’ Do they deserve the death penalty?” They, of course, do not and the vast majority of Israelis deserve their fair share of road building funds to assure adequate safety standards. The settlements continue to exact a high cost from Israeli society.
