PMO director: The word 'Druze' instills fear
Speaking before business sector, Eyal Gabbai outline difficulties faced by government ministries, gives example of how fear of Druze residents stops Infrastructure Ministry from laying down gas pipeline to Haifa. MK Whbee demands Gabbai apologize
Prime Minister's Office Director Eyal Gabbai shocked members of the business sector in a speech at an Israel Management Center conference dealing with the limitations of government Thursday in which he illustrated the helpless state the government ministries are in.
He said, "The word 'Druze' has become a word that instills fear within government ministries. They have licensed weapons, and therefore, no one wants to deal with them."
He said such reactions were based on prejudice misconceptions, which may lead certain officials to fear members of the Druze community and therefore avoid dealing with them.
Gabbai gave an example of the need to install a natural gas pipeline leading to the Haifa bay. "We got an environmental briefing saying we must minimize emissions. Factories were asked to connect to natural gas. The Infrastructure Ministry and the gas company want to lay the pipe down, and then it turns out that it passes through Druze land and it can't be place.
"You can't do anything on Druze land on Druze land or on land where there are graves, even from the Byzantine period. That's why, for example, they emergency room at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon has not been fortified."
He also commented on Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to a school in the Arab town of Shfaram on the first day of the school year. "This week I accompanied the prime minister in schools and there was a feeling that the students and the teachers think, 'This is the man that will solve our problems, this is the man that will say what should be done in the morning and that it will be done in the afternoon.' The prime minister enters a school and sees that it's really hot and the children are suffering, so he says an air conditioner should be installed."
Speaking of the bureaucratic hurdles, the Gabbai continued: "The principal of the school thinks – if he says it in the morning, it will happen in the afternoon. But it turns out that for this, you need the approval of the clerks at the Education Ministry and not just the approval of the director-general, but of five director-generals."
Of his own role, the director said according to law, he "does not have that much authority". He also spoke of plans to shorten the tenures of top officials, saying, "I am not in favor of changing all the clerks with the minister, but they should be refreshed every six or eight years. They should not become complacent."
In response to Gabbai's comments on the Druze, Kadima MK Majalli Whbee urged Netanyahu to demand his office's director apologize, and in the even he refuses to do so, to have him dismissed at once.
MK Said Naffaa (Balad) also responded to Gabbai's comments, saying, "Gabbai is another racist from the school of racism. The Druze are victims of Gabbai, his supereiors and the racist discrimination policy that degrades the rights of the Arab minority, including the Druze".
