Featured Post

Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!

(this is a featured post and will stay at the top for the foreseeable future.. scroll down for new posts) -------------------------------...

Mar 21, 2018

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.

  -- Albert Einstein

A great example of Einstein's thought is in the news right now. Two separate news items that show good things being killed by bureaucracy.

It was recently announced that IKEA will be building a new branch near Eshtaol, just outside Bet Shemesh. Besides for the increased shopping opportunities, this will also provide many jobs for the people in the entire area.

Sure enough, this has hit a snag with Moshav Eshtaol locking up the progress with a lawsuit claiming the first rights to buy the land. You can get all the details of the real estate dispute in the Globes article on the topic.

It was also recently announced that the USA will be moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14 of this year, as part of the celebrations of Israel's 70th birthday. This is really symbolic as they will be converting the US Consulate in Jerusalem to the embassy while they begin planning construction of a new embassy building. The current embassy building in Tel Aviv will become a consulate.

Israel has been looking forward to such a gesture fr such a long time, and it is finally here, only to be held up and possibly delayed by red tape. As TOI reports
According to the report on the Hadashot TV news outlet, the Americans want to build a three-meter wall around the site and pave a new road from the site, among other changes. However, the site’s current zoning status does not allow for such changes.
Foreign Ministry Director General Yuval Rotem reportedly sent a letter to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, warning that if the construction work was not granted an immediate exemption and the red tape wasn’t cut, the planned embassy move on May 14 would be at risk.
“The process of requesting an amendment to the existing outline plan is expected to take a long time, and will not allow completion of the work on the date set for the embassy’s move,” wrote Rotem. “Without these works being completed, the compound will not meet the mandatory requirements of the State Department for the American Embassy.”
Approving the zoning changes requires a meeting of the National Council for Planning and Building. However, the proximity to the Passover festival, which begins on March 30, may make it difficult for the body to convene.
PM Netanyahu promises to help cut through the red tape so it can get done on time.

way to go


------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

1 comment:

  1. I'm wondering if the embassy move is really an excuse as they want to change the date for security reasons - "Nakba Day" often has violent demonstrations and opening an embassy may put additional stress on our forces, but of course no one can say that we don't want to open the embassy on that date, so drop a story about red tape which everyone is working to resolve as quickly as possible .... but don't be surprised if the ribbon cutting ceremony is delayed slightly (through absolutely nobody's fault).

    Just me speculating, I have no insider information as to whether there really is a legitimate problem which can't be resolved.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...