Cost of settlements bleed the public purse
Sustaining the Kedumim settlement (above) is costing the Israeli state an inordinate amount of money, what with its unpaid debt of 24 million shekels added to the high cost of policing the weekly protest from neighbouring Kafr Qaddum*, on whose land the costly settlement was built. Photo by Tali Mayer
Israeli Government Erases $76m in Debts Owed by Settlements
State writes off the majority of debts owed by dozens of Jewish settlements, but released figures this week only after Haaretz filed suit to obtain the information.
By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz
September 02, 2015
The Israeli government has erased 65 percent of the debts of 36 Jewish communities in the West Bank and Golan Heights that are owed to the World Zionist Organization’s settlement division, forgoing 300 million shekels ($76.5 million) of the 360 million shekels these communities owe. Dozens of other settlements still owe money on loans granted as far back as 1978.
The debts stem from loans provided by the WZO with government funds granted to settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights, used for agriculture and development of the communities. The settlement division has done almost nothing to collect these debts, with only about 15 percent of the total paid back over the years.
The management of the debts was faulty and part of the loans were listed for years in Israeli pounds (which were replaced by shekels in 1980, and subsequently replaced by the new shekels in 1985). Most of the loans were taken out by “co-operative societies” representing the communities, and some by the farmers themselves.
In the government’s annual financial report of 2010, the Finance Ministry noted that the debt collection over the years for the loans provided through the settlement division was minimal, or nonexistent. The treasury also pointed out that construction loans had not been listed in previous years, that no terms for their repayment had been set, nor any method of accounting and management of these loans determined.
As a result of this report, the settlement division, in co-operation with the Finance Ministry, started a debt repayment campaign in May, 2011 to pay off the loans granted through the end of 2003. Regulations were published outlining how to write off such debts, and under which conditions debtors could turn to a joint committee of the Finance Ministry and settlement division to request that their debts be erased.
Herzl’s tomb on the top of Mount Herzl where all the leaders, deceased, of the WZO are buried. Photo from WZO.
Israel’s secret funding of settlementsFrom Jewish Forward, March 2015
It’s an unwritten arrangement Diaspora Jewish leaders and Israel have kept for decades — though few Jews know about it: The government of Israel uses one of world Jewry’s main Zionist funding instruments to hide money that it channels secretly to exclusively Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The funding body is the World Zionist Organization, set up to represent all Jews who support the concept of a Jewish state. For more than a century, the WZO, founded by Theodor Herzl at the first Zionist Congress, has served to gather the Zionist movement’s members under one nonpartisan umbrella.
But for decades, the Israeli government, with the tacit consent of Diaspora Jewish leaders, has taken one branch of this group, the Settlement Division, and turned it into a covert cash box for bankrolling settlement activity off the government’s own books.
In recent years, the state has listed these debts as having fallen from 588 million shekels in 2010 to 35 million shekels. In January 2015, Haaretz filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law to receive information on these debt settlements, including the amounts written off. The Finance Ministry refused to provide the data. Haaretz then filed suit in the Jerusalem District Court to receive the information. This week, a few days before the scheduled hearing on the petition, the state provided the requested figures “beyond the letter of the law,” it said.
The documents reveal that at the end of 2013 there were over 100 co-operative societies with debts to the WZO’s settlement division, totalling 360 million shekels. The government estimates that only 60 million shekels of this amount can be collected.
Among the major settlements with the largest debts are: Kedumim (24 million shekels), Shvut Rahel (18 million), Halamish (17 million), Beit El (16 million), Kfar Adumim — where Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Habayit Hayehudi), who is responsible for the settlement division lives (14 million), Ofra (14 million) and Kfar Tapuah (13 million).
In the Golan Heights, 36 communities reached debt settlements with the government. The original debts were 158 million shekels, but only 22 million shekels of this amount was paid back as part of the arrangements. After the debt agreements, the total owed by these communities was 49 million shekels — meaning a 64 percent write off.
Sansana in the southern Hebron hills received a 93 percent debt relief, the largest granted. The community had borrowed 622,000 shekels and had not paid off a single shekel of this debt. In the end, the debt arrangement left Sansana with 44,000 shekels in loans to repay.
Shani-Livne, which straddles the Green Line south of Hebron, borrowed 3.1 million shekels, and after reaching a debta arrangement will have to pay back only 988,000 shekels. But the settlement division was quite generous to the community and will allow it to pay back this sum in 180 monthly payments — in other words through 2029.
Neot Golan borrowed 4.7 million shekels and never repaid any part of it. After the debt agreement the community paid 572,000 shekels — only 12 percent of the original amount owed.
In comparison, Kfar Haruv on the Golan Heights borrowed 9.2 million shekels and paid back 5.3 million shekels over the years. It later repaid another 1.6 million shekels – for a total repayment of 74 percent of its debts.
In the Jordan Valley the co-operative societies owed a total of 146 million shekels. But since only partial figures were provided concerning those communities, and it is difficult to estimate the amount of debt written off. The settlement division reached debt settlements with 372 debtors who owed a total of 17 million shekels.
The average private debtor had 50 percent of their loans written off.