Drama at Haifa Bay summit as Yona Yahav attacks government and walks out
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav walked out of his speech by Prime Minister’s economic adviser Prof. Avi Shmuelson at a summit on the future of Haifa Bay held today (Wednesday). During Shmuelson’s remarks, the mayor clashed with him, saying the state is investing NIS 400 billion in transportation development in central Israel and nothing in Haifa. In the middle of Shmuelson’s speech, Yahav left the hall in protest. A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said, “He had prior plans.”
Yona Yahav, the mayor of Haifa, used his speech to sharply criticize the government and said the state is systematically neglecting the Haifa metropolitan area: “Right now they are investing NIS 400 billion in transportation in the center. How much is invested in Haifa? Zero. Nothing. There is no thought at all.” Yahav said governments and ministers change, but the attitude toward Haifa remains the same: “For 80 years, from Hadera to Haifa there has been no lighting on the coastal road. How dare they?” According to him, the regional roads, including Highway 2, Highway 4 and Highway 75, are “so dark that they endanger human life,” while advanced transportation infrastructure is being built in the center of the country. “How much is invested in Haifa? Zero. Nothing. There is no thought at all.”
The mayor also attacked transportation planning in the city: “Why does the state build smart transportation systems in the center of the country, while in Haifa we have to settle for the Carmelit, which was built more than 50 years ago, at the expense of the Haifa municipality?” He warned against electrified rail lines that would “destroy access to the sea,” and asked, “Where is the thought? Where is the effort to preserve our uniqueness?” Yahav called on the authorities in the Haifa metropolitan area to act together against the government: “When an entire region speaks with one voice, they won’t be able to ignore it.” According to him, the polluting factories must be removed from the bay, future employment created, international growth engines brought in and broad investment in infrastructure demanded. “The last war made clear how vital this region is to the state, not only economically and industrially, but strategically,” Yahav said. “We must not think small. We need a big, transformative decision, for our children and grandchildren,” he stressed.
Later, when it was the turn of Nesher Mayor Roi Levi to speak, Shmuelson had already left on his own and was criticized from the outset of Levi’s remarks: “If there had been so many people who care about Haifa Bay, I would have stayed until the end to hear everyone,” he said. “The one who initiated the plan and took credit for it got up and left. That told me everything.” According to him, the claim that the plan was formulated in cooperation with the local authorities is not true. “Don’t believe it. There is no round table. There is no dialogue with the local authorities,” he said. He noted that none of the major local authority heads in the metropolitan area, including Haifa, Kiryat Ata, Kiryat Yam and Kiryat Bialik, attended the conference, and said this shows the depth of the crisis between the state and local authorities. Levi defined the main problem with TAMA 75 as the lack of a clear commitment to a date for evacuating the refineries and polluting factories. “None of us knows when the factories will be evacuated. Nothing in the plan links the evacuation to development. Everything is up in the air,” he said. “If the real goal is to evacuate Bazan and all the polluting factories, let them say that to us openly,” he attacked.
