The Negev will bloom. Or will it?

Tourists' boats on Lake Yeruham will have to wait. Despite government's promises, only a quarter of the budget allocated to the Negev in 2008 will reach the desert region

Reuters | Published: 08.25.07, 10:05

Two prime ministers promised no less than NIS 17 billion to the Negev over the next 10 years. That means NIS 1.7 billion a year. The target: 900,000 residents within a decade, doubling the number of jobs, shrinking the gap in wages compared to central Israel, and narrowing the gap in academic education. All aimed at stopping emigration and turning the Negev into an alternative residential area. Definitely, a vision to be proud of.

The visionaries allocated a huge budget. They envisioned tourists boats on Lake Yeruham, high-rise buildings in Ofakim, an international airport filled with tourists on their to shop in Dimona, a fast Japanese train to Tel Aviv. That is how visions are. They border on delusions.

Yet the Negev is not some imaginary land, it is here. It is in the exact same place David Ben Gurion left it. Only NIS 450 million will reach the Negev in 2008, a little over a quarter of the original sum.

Yaakov Edery, Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, said thank you and folded because he is from Kadima, and there was a war, and there are Shoah survivors, and politics involved. The Negev, with all due respect, is not Olmert's top priority. So what if he made a promise?

In the meantime in the Negev, the battered wife syndrome seems to rule. They got used to not getting anything so they thank the government for the little they end up getting.