Sharon gov't slammed over 'disengagement' failures

Comptroller says authorities failed to adequately care for evacuees

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By Ryan Jones
March 08, 2006

Israel's State Comptroller Wednesday publicly reprimanded the current government over its failure to adequately care for the thousands of Jews it threw out of their homes in northern Samaria and the Gaza Strip last summer.

Many of the victims of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" continue to live without permanent housing or steady employment some seven months after the razing of their once thriving communities.

In a detailed report, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss took the Disengagement Authority (SELA), the Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry to task over this gross mismanagement that has resulted in the prolonged suffering of the evicted Israelis.

"A supreme and concentrated national effort was required of all the ministries that dealt with the disengagement, and above all by the Prime Minister's Office and Sela."

But the statements and actions of Sharon and his ministers made evident the government was far more concerned with the brief international praise they expected in return for quitting Gaza than they were with the long-term well-being of the uprooted families.

In particular, Lindenstrauss pointed out the government's failure to prepare local authorities within "Israel proper" to absorb the evacuees so they could return to normal life as soon as possible.

"The instructions that the local authorities received from the government ministries and particularly from the Prime Minister's Office, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Social Welfare were incomplete and insufficiently detailed. The lack of detailed instructions harmed the preparedness of the local authorities to absorb the evacuees."

On Tuesday, acting-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reacted to the report by convening the Ministerial Disengagement Committee, where SELA Director Yonatan Basi said he "expected" most of the housing issues to be resolved in the coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile, Olmert has indicated that if elected when Israelis go to the polls later this month, he will carry on in Sharon's footsteps by expelling some 90,000 Jews from communities across Judea and Samaria.

How he would adequately care for such a large number of refugees when the 10,000 evacuees from last summer appears to be too difficult a challenge is a topic Olmert has failed to broach.

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