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News :: Israel / Palestine |
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Israeli Settlements Cost Half A Gigabuck A Year |
Current rating: 0 |
by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
23 Sep 2003
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A New Shekel is worth about twenty-two cents; that makes the
annual cost about half a gigabuck, or an annual additional
cost of about two kilobucks per settler. -- @%< |
Last update - 10:50 23/09/2003
Settlements cost NIS 2.5B. a year in non-military outlays
By Moti Bassok , Haaretz Correspondent
In recent years, Israel has spent at least an extra NIS 2.5 billion
annually in non-military outlays to maintain its hold on the settlements
in the West Bank and Gaza, and has expended at least NIS 45 billion on
the settlements since 1967, according to a Haaretz report that will
appear in the Rosh Hashana supplement on Friday.
Such civilian spending translates into annual surplus costs of more than
NIS 10,000 per settler.
The report was compiled by a team of 15 reporters during the past three
months who met with dozens of top treasury officials, economic experts
and politicians, collected numerous documents, and drew information from
the few studies conducted until now regarding details of settlement
funding.
The main budget items for this extra spending during the past years
include transfers to the local authorities (about NIS 700 million), the
Housing Ministry (NIS 440 million, with a 2003 estimate of NIS 500
million), and roads (about NIS 400 million). The cost of income tax
benefits provided to settlers was about NIS 130 million, although these
benefits were canceled this summer.
The study found that the state invests about NIS 80 million annually on
electricity infrastructure, NIS 50 million on water infrastructure, NIS
40 million on industry, and NIS 30 million via the Mifal Hapayis
national lottery. At least NIS 100 million annually is spent on
education, while another NIS 75 million in extra costs is expended on
the health system.
In addition to all these sums, the Interior Ministry transferred to the
local authorities two types of special budgets for the settlements: an
Oslo grant (about NIS 35 million per year) and an intifada grant
(another NIS 35 million). All told, the amount totals about NIS 2.25
billion in annual extra costs.
Two significant budget items whose scope is unknown are land acquisition
and allocations for several hundreds of non-profit organizations. The
2003 economic plan led to cutbacks of more than NIS 150 million -
although it is still unclear whether they will ultimately be
implemented. Therefore, a very conservative calculation of annual extra
non-military spending for the settlements in recent years would be NIS
2.5 billion.
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