Atar: The young are abandoning the periphery

Atar suggested that financial support is provided to settlements near Israel’s northern and southern borders only when they are threatened by Hezbollah and Hamas.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
DANIEL ATAR: The Jewish link to the environment goes back to the holy roots of the Torah (photo credit: KKL)
DANIEL ATAR: The Jewish link to the environment goes back to the holy roots of the Torah
(photo credit: KKL)
In an impassioned address at the Jerusalem Post-Maariv Election Conference in Herzliya on Wednesday, KKL-JNF World Chairman Daniel Atar bemoaned the lack of attention given to Israel’s periphery during this election season. “The young are abandoning the periphery in favor of Israel’s center in huge numbers, because they cannot find work in the Galil or the Negev,” said Atar.
KKL-JNF has developed the “KKL-JNF 2040: Moving to the Land of Tomorrow” initiative, which is focused on strengthening the next generation by creating new hi-tech hubs in northern and southern Israel, in order to boost local communities and their economies and help them thrive.
“We have been working for four years in the Galil and Negev exclusively, and the world that we are in today, in Tel Aviv, is not the world that exists in the Galil and the Negev,” he said. “It is a different reality. I ask myself: what is our country doing about this? Must KKL lead the way to keep the younger generation from fleeing the periphery? What is the future of the Arava, the Golan, the settlements near the border?”
Atar suggested that financial support is provided to settlements near Israel’s northern and southern borders only when they are threatened by Hezbollah and Hamas. To prove his point, he said that the population of Beit She’an has not grown since 1951.
Atar also lamented the lack of health care available in the far-flung areas of Israel. “On the eve of elections,” he concluded, “as an Israeli citizen, I would like the discussion to be about what the political parties can do to help improve our lives.”