Within a decade from now, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport will reach the limit of its capacity. Only recently, after years of postponements and committees, reports and decisions, has the government agreed on a planning budget for the construction of an airport at Ramat David in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel, or at Nevatim, near Beersheva, in the south of the country.
Now, however, Minister of the Interior Moshe Arbel seeks to promote the idea of an airport near Beit She’an in the north-east of Israel, a possibility that has already been found to be impractical.
In 2011, the government recognized “the urgent national need” for the construction of an additional airport in Israel to supplement Ben Gurion. In 2014, the government settled on Ramat David as the preferred location, subject to the judgement of the planning institutions. The National Planning and Building Council started examining possibilities in 2016, and produced the Shafran Committee Report in 2017. The committee recommended moving ahead with planning for Nevatim and Ramat David, but stressed that “Ramat David is clearly preferable from the economic and aviation points of view, while Nevatim has aviation limitations but is preferable from the point of view of impact on the environment in the noise aspect. Since dealing with noise is solvable, the recommendation is to proceed initially with a detailed plan for a supplementary airport at Ramat David.” Other possibilities were examined, but it was decided that they were impractical.
Opposition to constructing an airport at Ramat David was wall to wall. Heads of local authorities near the planned airport objected, whereas local authority heads in the south demanded that plans for a new airport should proceed at Nevatim, near them, an alternative opposed by the Ministry of Defense.
When the previous government was formed in 2021, it decided to cancel the previous decisions, and to conduct another comprehensive survey of possible sites. Again, a committee was formed, headed by the Ministry of Transport, but its 600-page final report was never signed or distributed, possibly because the recommendations again included Ramat David.
In the current government, the controversy broke out again. Minister of Transport Miri Regev supported the Nevatim alternative, together with local authority heads in the south, the Ministry of Defense opposed it, and the Ministry of Finance pushed for Ramat David.
Industry sources explained that the local authority elections held this year meant that Regev could not retract, since promoting Ramat David represented a blow to the local authority heads in the south. At any rate, in January, the government decided to promote the Ramat David and Nevatim sites in parallel, and NIS 20 million was allocated for planning.
“Cheap demagoguery”
The decisions now lie with the National Planning and Building Council. Meanwhile, according to sources in the sector, Arbel has instructed that the possibility of building an airport at Beit She’an should be examined. His staff say that they only sought to understand why the possibility of an airport near Beit She’an was ruled out. This, thirteen years after it was determined that an additional airport was required, and eight years after it was decided that it should be built at Ramat David.
Meanwhile, last week, tempers were high at a session of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee, when, at the request of MK Matti Sarfatti Harcavi (Yesh Atid), the committee discussed the planning consequences of an airport at Ramat David. Heads of adjacent local authorities claimed that they were already being required to observe planning and building restrictions, in 23 local authorities. At the same time, the mayor of Dimona pleaded for the construction of an airport at Nevatim.
The head of the Planning Administration at the Ministry of the Interior, Rafi Elmaliach, rejected the claims, and said that the Administration was continuing to promote two supplementary airports to Ben Gurion, at both Ramat David and Nevatim, after all the possibilities had been professionally examined. “It’s inconceivable that the State of Israel should remain with one airport, when the forecast is for 75 million passengers in 2050. If you want us to have to reserve a place at Ben Gurion Airport a year in advance, then the situation can be left as it is,” Elmaliach said.
“The site of the planned airport at Ramat David is on the site of the existing (military) airfield, such that the building restrictions that apply today are almost identical to the ones that will apply in the future,” he added. “Accordingly, the claims of harm to agriculture in the Jezreel Valley or of projects being halted are no more than cheap demagoguery.”
A statement from Minister of the Interior Moshe Arbel’s bureau said: “Minister Arbel sought to learn the reasons for the construction of an airport near Beit She’an being dismissed, and he did not seek to promote any airport in addition to what the government has decided at this time.”
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on August 6, 2024.
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