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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning visited the Eshkol Regional Council area and met with Council leaders and residents, many of whom are evacuees from Gush Katif. Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Construction and Housing minister Ariel Atias, agriculture minister Shalom Simhon and Science minister Daniel Hershkowitz, who chairs the ministerial committee on dealing with Gush Katif evacuees, also attended the meeting.
Resident representatives and TENUFA Authority (formerly the SELA Authority) Director Bentzi Liberman briefed Prime Minister Netanyahu, who said that "Assistance towards resolving the plight of Gush Katif evacuees is a national mission." He also referred to development problems in the entire area and the investments necessary for transportation, water, land use and energy infrastructures, and emphasized that, "We will invest money in what produces money." To this end, the Prime Minister instructed that the economic viability of pumping brackish water from underground reservoirs, in order to provide water to local residents, in the area be considered. He also directed that investing in solar energy – in order to bring about the production of cheaper, greener and friendlier alternative energy – in the sun-drenched area be examined.
Prime Minister Netanyahu referred to his TENUFA Authority hosts and said that changing the name of the Authority indeed signaled a new momentum ["tenufa" means "momentum" in Hebrew]. He reiterated that, "We intend to harness ourselves to this national mission and proceed towards its realization, Government and residents alike, which each side doing its utmost.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the Israeli economy was strengthening and coping very well with the global economic crisis. He noted that his aspiration is "to reach 5% annual growth for the next several years. Only thus will we build a dynamic and growing economy that will produce for us the money for security, social needs, education and rural community development. We will raise this money in your greenhouses," the Prime Minister told local residents, whom he asked to continue investing in the area. "This is the way to generate the economic momentum that will lead towards resolving the residents' problems," he said.
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