from: Arutz....IsraeliNationalNews.com
Lieberman: Complete Disengagement, Declare Gaza Enemy State
Politicians and public figures have weighed in over the past days with suggestions for how to bring an end to the rocket attacks from Gaza.
Lieberman: Complete Disengagement, Declare Gaza Enemy State
Rocket Report: Electricity Knocked Out in Sderot
Russians Bidding for Control in Downtown Jerusalem
Public Figures Express Regret For Disengagement
Background: History of PA Shelling Against Israel
Poll: Israelis Finished With Withdrawals
Inventor of Pal-Kal Sentenced to Four Years
Audio: Bush Declined to Meet Chief Rabbi Metzger Over Pollard
1. Lieberman: Complete Disengagement, Declare Gaza Enemy State
by Ezra HaLevi
Politicians and public figures have weighed in over the past days with suggestions for how to bring an end to the rocket attacks from Gaza.
Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman announced a plan Thursday that calls for a “completion of the Disengagement.” Lieberman explained to Army Radio: “We expelled all the Jews from Gaza and left there completely, but still provide it with economic support, water and electricity. We must sever all connections with Gaza and declare it an independent enemy entity,” he said. “There is no reason Egypt cannot supply the electricity and water for Gaza and let the European Union build infrastructure and provide security if they care about the poor Palestinians so much,” he added. “Membership in the axis of evil has a heavy price—financially, politically, and militarily.”
Lieberman said his plan includes a complete closure of all crossings between Gaza and Israel through which PA Arab workers currently cross into Israel and through which aid passes to Gaza. His plan also calls for bombing Gaza neighborhood in response to rocket-fire, ending visitation rights for PA terrorists until kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is released, severing Gaza from Judea and Samaria and stopping diplomatic contacts with any and all PA officials, including Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas.
NATO troops would be called upon to provide security and the European Union would be invited to provide infrastructure and jobs for PA Arabs.
Lieberman said the plan would come into effect in 2008 and be modeled after how Israel related to the Sinai after withdrawal. "Just as Israel did not continue to provide anything to Sinai after it withdrew, there is no reason why it should act any differently toward Gaza, especially in the current situation," he said. The Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) chairman said he would present his plan to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the rest of the government Thursday.
Other Proposals
Ministers Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) and Rafi Eitan (Pensioners) proposed a concept similar to Lieberman's, in terms of the IDF’s response to Kassam rockets, at Wednesday’s Security Cabinet meeting. They suggested that Israel produce its own version of the Kassam rocket and fire it at targets in Gaza each time Kassams are fired toward Israel.
They said such a rocket would cost very little but recreate the psychological pressure felt by residents of Sderot among Gaza’s civilian population.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai (Shas) suggested that Israel launch air strikes to destroy entire PA villages in response to rocket fire, after warning the Arab residents to vacate their homes. Fellow Shas MK Yitzhak Cohen suggested Israel cut off electricity, water and gas to Gaza – an idea backed by Shabak (General Security Service) chief Yuval Diskin and rehashed in Lierbman’s proposal.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly rejected those proposals, but ordered the IDF to continue to apply pressure via targeted killings and air strikes on Hamas targets.
Left-wing MKs Avshalom Vilan (Meretz) and Zahava Gal-On (Meretz), meanwhile, have been enthusiastically promoting a plan to invite the Arab league to take responsibility for Gaza and coordinate a multi-national force together with the European Union to deploy there. The two say they have presented the idea to European and PA officials and plan to present it to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has expressed interest in the deployment of foreign troops along Israel’s Gaza border.
Minister Rafi Eitan (Pensioners) recently suggested a similar idea, involving bringing Egyptian troops into Gaza and Jordanians into Judea and Samaria. "The same thing [as happened following the Second Lebanon War – the deployment of international troops –ed.] sooner or later, will happen in the Gaza Strip, with the senior partner in such a force being Egypt because it has no choice," Eitan told government radio.
“When the Egyptians are there, when 500 or 600 (Palestinian) civilians are killed, no one will say anything. That is what will eventually happen. We are getting there, gradually.” Eitan added that he also sees a future deployment of Jordanians in Judea and Samaria.
Defense Minister Amir Peretz, speaking at a Tel Aviv University conference Wednesday evening, said that Israel has no plans to enter Gaza, because "restraint is power.” Peretz added later on in the speech that “if there is no choice, the IDF will operate in Gaza.”
2. Rocket Report: Electricity Knocked Out in Sderot
by Hillel Fendel
Of two Kassam rockets fired from Gaza at Israel Thursday morning, one landed at the entrance to a kibbutz in the western Negev. No one was hurt, but a wheat field was set on fire.
Just two days ago, Agriculture Minister Shalom Simchon announced that the farming communities around Gaza would be eligible for a total of 800,000 shekels ($200,000) for the purpose of quickly harvesting their fields. Many wheat fields have been burnt in the past two weeks by Kassam rockets, just as they were about to be harvested.
Wednesday's five rockets to Sderot caused heavy damage to two houses and knocked out electricity in parts of the city.
The "Color Red" warning siren did not go off before some of the rockets hit - a situation that residents say is particularly frightening. In last night's direct hit, however, the warning system was activated, and the family was able to hide in its protected room and thus save their lives. Parts of the city were left in darkness around the same time when another rocket hit an electric pole. Electricity was restored only at 5 AM around the area of the explosion, and by midnight for the rest.
Earlier Wednesday, just minutes after noon, another home in Sderot was hit directly by a Kassam rocket; no one was home at the time. Six people were evacuated to the Shock Treatment Center in Sderot, however.
Meanwhile, the father of a boy who died last week is saying his son was a Kassam rocket victim - yet he has not been recognized as such. Israel Radio's southern region correspondent Nissim Keinan reported Thursday morning that a 13-year-old boy, Chai Shalom, died last week in Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva after being wounded in a Kassam attack. Deaf, mute, and suffering from cerebral palsy, he and three other children were wounded when a rocket exploded near their bus; the woman bus driver was able only to open the door and cry out for help before fainting. Though the boy has not, as of yet, been governmentally recognized as a terror victim, Welfare Minister Yitzchak Herzog said that now that he has been informed of the matter, he would look into it.
Ten people are listed as having died as a result of Kassam rocket attacks - the last two being Shir'el Friedman of Sderot and Oshri Oz of Hod HaSharon over the past ten days. Chai Shalom's death brings the total to eleven.
In the midst of yesterday's rockets, the Quartet - the US, UN, EU and Russia, convening in Berlin - condemned the Arabs' rocket fire at Israel, while also warning Israel not to "over-react." The Quartet representatives said Israel must not respond by harming civilians or damaging civilian infrastructures.
In other PA violence, two Arabs were killed Wednesday night in Shechem when a car exploded near them. The car was apparently being prepared by Fatah terrorists as a car bomb to be used against IDF forces.
3. Russians Bidding for Control in Downtown Jerusalem
by Hillel Fendel
If current negotiations with the Russians succeed, a large complex in central Jerusalem will be handed over to control of the Russian government.
The area in question is part or all of what is known as the Russian Compound, so named because it was built and once owned by the Russian government. It was originally constructed as one of the first complexes outside the Old City of Jerusalem, for the purpose of housing the thousands of Christian Russian pilgrims who wished to visit the holy city.
Though the 17-acre area in the heart of Jerusalem, between Jaffa, HaNeviim, and Shivtei Yisrael Streets, was once a bustling center with impressively-built structures, it now is used largely as a courthouse and detention center. The Russian government has of late informed various Israeli Prime Ministers that it would like to reclaim the area - at a price of $100 million.
Secret Talks
Negotiations have been underway during the regimes of Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert - very secretly, so as not to arouse the expected storm of public protest.
Despite the secret nature of the talks, Arutz-7's Shimon Cohen reports that Foreign Ministry sources say the talks "regarding the Russian property are proceeding to the satisfaction of both sides... though a final agreement has not yet been reached." The Foreign Ministry wishes to emphasize that the area is not being sold, but rather being "returned" to its former owners.
It is assumed that the deal will only be finalized after the Jerusalem Magistrates Court is able to be relocated to a new building currently being constructed.
A Historic Spot
Legend says that the current-day location of the Russian Compound was the jump-off point for the armies of both Sennacherib and Titus in their respective military campaigns, centuries apart, against the Jewish city. (Sennacherib lost, Titus succeeded.)
4. Public Figures Express Regret For Disengagement
by Ezra HaLevi
The Yesha Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza communities has published a collection of statements by public figures who supported or helped implement the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria and have since expressed regret. The following are some of the statements:
Maj.-Gen (ret.) Yiftah Ron-Tal, IDF ground forces commander at the time of the Disengagement: In the year preceding the Disengagement, the army trained mostly for dismantling communities, and that prevented it from preparedness for the war in Lebanon. The training for the Disengagement not only prevented preparedness for such a war, but dragged it away from the consensus as a people’s army. It is nearly certain that the excitement of those who led the decision and implementation of this is directly tied to the big failure in Lebanon…I still cannot understand how Israel gave up parts of its land willingly and with abandon, and how the residents connected to that land were turned into criminals, instead of raising their dedication as a banner of preserving the Jewish identity of the state of Israel.
- Kfar Chabad weekly, October 6, 2006
Ilana Dayan, Journalist, Host of Popular ‘Uvda’(Fact) Program on Channel 2: How come nobody is standing up and asking where this rain of Kassams is coming from? Why didn’t we ask the deep questions? Why didn’t we wonder whether this was the right way – even for those of us who wanted to divide the land? Why did we only examine the Disengagement when ‘orange’ youth burned tires in the street? Why did [Sharon confidant and Disengagement architect] Dov Weisglas not tell us there would be a rain of Kassams on Sderot? Because this wasn’t popular and because there was a strong prime minister [Ariel Sharon] with a firm hold on the central hubs of the media.
- address at B’nai Brith journalism prize ceremony, June 22, 2006
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, Chairman of the National Security Council and one of the Disengagement’s chief architects: There was no forward contemplation. The Disengagement contributed nothing to a solution to the conflict…There was no discussion of its merits. When I was tasked with planning it, all that existed was the word ‘Disengagement’ used by Sharon at the Herzliya Conference…I was given four months to plan, but Dov Weisglas was already committing to the Americans and leaking details of the withdrawal plans to the press…The paradigm of two states for two nations is not implementable. Perhaps the whole world agrees to it, but on the ground, it simply cannot be done.
- Haaretz, June 1, 2006
Avri Gilad, broadcaster and TV personality who supported Disengagement: I supported the Disengagement. I was mistaken. The way it was carried out was a crime.
-Maariv, January 23, 2007
From a practical perspective, pragmatic and seeing the situation for what it is – the orange public was right…Large segments of the public supported the plan out of general ideological reasons.
-Army Radio, HaMilah Acharona, June 26, 2006
Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Moshe Ya’alon, IDF Chief of Staff at the time the government decided to carry out the Disengagement: “There is no escaping the fact that the background leading to the decision was a political crisis – the decline in support for the prime minister, and added to that was a personal crisis – the investigations into corruption…Examining the Disengagement in hindsight opposite Israel’s interests, it was the worst possible…Israel withdrew from every millimeter, including evacuating settlements, received nothing in return, and thus created a very problematic precedent.”
- Maariv, February 24, 2006
Ron Ben Yishai, senior journalist for military affairs: The fact that they mixed the IDF up with the Disengagement, that the army was forced to do the job of the police, was a heavy blow to motivation. Not to mention that the IDF didn’t train for an entire year, during which it dealt only with evacuations. We have to put the IDF back in uniform.
- Army Radio, Ma Boer, February 14, 2007
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a major backer of the Disengagement: The more we take the army out of the territories, the more terror nests develop.
- Address to the Center For Local Government, January 4, 2007
Professor Aaron Ciechanover, 2004 Nobel Prize Laureate for Chemistry, vocal Disengagement advocate: I supported the idea of Disengagement last year, which seemed to me an act of unilateral volunteerism toward the Palestinians. I hoped our kindness would be returned, but I was mistaken. After our unilateral withdrawal we received only terrorism and more terrorism. The unilateral idea is bankrupt and along with it the party soap bubble of a party that was established on its basis.
- Yediot Acharonot, October 27, 2006
Yoel Marcus, left-wing commentator for Haaretz and ardent Disengagement supporter: To my great sorrow, it now seems that the extremist and pessimistic settlers were those who were right. The Palestinians do not wish to recognize Israel and have not accepted its existence. And now, with the election of Hamas, they again are not missing any opportunity to miss an opportunity…They turned the communities of Gush Katif into launch sites against residents of the Negev and particularly the town of Sderot. The warnings of Ariel Sharon and Dan Halutz that ‘If they will fire Kassams after Gaza is evacuated, Israel’s response will be harsh’ has not really frightened them.
-Haaretz, November 21, 2006
Hillel Halkin, Author and political commentator: Indeed, splitting the Likud was a bad thing. But so, it is necessary to say two years later, was disengagement. Those who were for it, like myself, were wrong. Those who were against it, like Mr. Netanyahu, were right...At great economic cost and at the price of a deep inner rift in Israeli society that still has not healed, 8,000 Jewish settlers were uprooted from their homes in return for supposed benefits, none of which has materialized. Gaza has become more, not less, of a military menace to Israel; Palestinian politics and the Palestinian street have become more, not less, radicalized; Israel's public image as an occupying country has not significantly improved in the world; and further unilateral disengagement in the West Bank as a possible way of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has turned out to be a chimera, in large measure because of the failure of what was supposed to be its Gazan first stage.
-New York Sun, May 29, 2007
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the first to float Ariel Sharon's Disengagement plan to the media: It must be said that that the experience we had in Lebanon and Gaza are not encouraging. We completely withdrew from Gaza, and every day they fire Kassam rockets on Israelis.
- Interview with Chinese media, January 8, 2007
Yaron London, Ynet commentator and host of Channel 10 London & Kirshenbaum Show, supported Disengagement: Nothing was built on the rubble except for terrorist training camps…The wall does not guarantee quiet: Kassams fly over it and terrorists dig under it.
- Ynet, June 26, 2006
Meirav Michaeli, TV anchor and radio personality identified with left-wing and feminist activism: The Disengagement left thousands of families without a home, escalated the situation in Gaza and did not advance the security situation at all.
- Ynet, February 19, 2007
Vice-Premier Shimon Peres, Oslo Accords architect and withdrawal proponent: The Disengagement idea is over. There will not be a repeat in Judea and Samaria of the Gaza withdrawal. There will not be a massive evacuation of settlements…Public opinion is against the idea of another unilateral Disengagement. Therefore, this won’t occur, at least in the next five year, or even the next decade.
- Yediot Acharonot, September 8, 2006
Yehoshua Sobol, author and prominent left-wing spokesperson and proponent of left-wing refusal to serve in the IDF: Nothing is being built there [in Gaza] these days. Nothing – nothing but destructive activities. This assumption, that it is enough or us to leave territory in order for the other side to stop its attacks has proven false…I do not want to see a situation where we once again fold, in Judea and Samaria, and the next day Kassam rockets begin to be fired on Kfar Saba, Raanana and Herzliya.
- Reshet Bet, July 27, 2006
Shabak (General Security Service) chief Yuval Diskin: The Disengagement was first and foremost a process of uprooting. There is in Israel a Laundromat of words. They call it an evacuation or all sorts of other things, but there was an uprooting here.
- Lecture at the pre-army academy in Eli, February 6, 2007
IDF Central Commander Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh: I claimed from the beginning that there was not [a single] security consideration in the Disengagement. This was a purely political decision whose motivations will perhaps someday be investigated.
- Maariv, April 19, 2007
Yair Lapid, popular TV personality and commentator: The Disengagement was not carried out despite the settlers but because of them. It never had anything to do with the Palestinians, with demographics, with a peace agreement, with the IDF or with any of the other explanations given and reviewed over and over. The drive was one thing: to teach the settlers a lesson in modesty. The Disengagement is now examined with other tools – political, strategic and demographic – and it doesn’t stand up to the test, especially while Kassams are falling on Sderot and Ashkelon.
- Yediot Acharonot, October 13, 2006
We left Lebanon and the Hizbullah attack us from Lebanon. We left Gaza and the terror groups attack us from Gaza. The region that is most quiet right now is Judea and Samaria. Even the biggest leftists are faced with the creeping heretical though: perhaps it wasn’t the occupation?
-Yediot Acharonot, column
MK Amira Dotan (Kadima), head of the Knesset committee for Gush Katif evacuees, supported the Disengagement: In hi-tech, when you do something, you examine it fully before you say it is OK. Here, we did something without examining what would happen afterward. There was no working model created beforehand.
- HaTzofeh, August 6, 2006
Absorption Minister Ze’ev Boim, who supported the Disengagement as Deputy Defense Minister in the Sharon government and left the Likud to join Kadima: From the beginning, the plan had some question marks which, after the fact, became clear were serious defects in the plan. We lost the Philadelphi Corridor [between Gaza and Egypt, though which weapons and explosives are smuggled –ed.]. It was a mistake to give up control of Philadelphi.
-Jerusalem Conference address, March 20, 2007
Senior TV newsanchor Dan Margalit, a strong supporter of Disengagement: Ehud Olmert has lost the mandate for a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria that he received when elected on the platform of such a withdrawal. When such a withdrawal is once again presented, I will think again before choosing it at the ballot box.
- Maariv, July 28, 2006
Maj.-Gen. Gershon HaCohen, who commanded the Disengagement and expressed his public agreement with it prior to implementation: What happened last year was a crime, and I was part of this crime against the Jewish nation. What is happening now – the Second Lebanon War – is the punishment for what happened last year.
- on visit to bereaved family, August 24, 2006
5. Background: History of PA Shelling Against Israel
by Hillel Fendel
On Jan 31, 2001, for the first time in the Oslo War, Arabs shot a mortar shell into Netzarim, a Jewish town in central Gaza. The rocket hit and damaged a house, but no one was hurt. Two more mortar shells were fired at Netzarim over the next two weeks.
On March 18, Gaza Arabs fired three mortar shells at an IDF base near Kibbutz Nachal Oz in the Negev - the first such attack from Gaza at pre-1967 Israel. A reserve duty soldier on the base was lightly wounded by shrapnel. Minister of Defense Ben-Eliezer stated that Israel "will not accept the current situation and will deploy the necessary forces to protect its citizens." IDF commanders stated that the attack signals the crossing of yet another red line by terrorist forces.
On April 3, in only the 5th or 6th mortar attack on Gush Katif, toddler Ariel Yered was critically wounded by shrapnel to his head. Israel retaliated, the terrorists increased their fire, and mortar shells quickly became a commonplace occurrence and lost their shock value - but not their lethal punch. On Nov. 24, reserve soldier Barak Madmon, 26, was killed outside Kfar Darom when a mortar shell hit his IDF outpost.
In early Feb. 2002, ten months after the first shells were fired, the first Kassam-2 home-made rockets were fired at an Israeli target. They landed near Kibbutz Saad and Moshav Shuva in the Negev, both just south of Sderot.
Within a few days, on Feb. 17 of that year, Arutz-7 reported, "The firing of Kassam rockets, which Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and other officials warned would be greeted with a severe Israeli response, appears to have become a matter of course. Palestinian terrorists fired a Kassam-1 last night at an IDF command post in northern Gaza's Nisanit, while the much more far-reaching and powerful Kassam-2 was fired towards Kibbutz Kfar Aza, well within pre-1967 Israel. No one was hurt."
Two weeks later, on Mar. 5, 2002, Sderot was first targeted: Two Kassam rockets hit a home in the Negev city, wounding three children.
Mortar shells and Kassams continued to be fired at Gush Katif, and more sporadically at the Negev. On Yom Kippur eve of 2004, Tiferet Tratner, 24, became the first civilian casualty of a mortar shell attack in Gush Katif when she was killed in her home in N'vei Dekalim. A total of close to 20 soldiers, civilians and foreign workers have been killed by mortar and rocket attacks in and around Gaza and Sderot.
Ultimately, 5,905 rockets and shells were counted as having been fired at Gush Katif during its last four and a half years of existence.
On Dec. 18, 2003, less than three years after the first shell was fired, PM Ariel Sharon gave up. "If in a few months," he announced, "the Palestinians still continue to disregard their part in implementing the Roadmap – Israel will initiate the unilateral security step of disengagement from the Palestinians." A month and a half later, Sharon said, "I have given an order to plan for the evacuation of 17 settlements in the Gaza Strip. It is my intention to carry out an evacuation - excuse me, a relocation - of settlements that cause us problems and of places that we will not hold onto anyway in a final settlement, such as the Gaza settlements."
Though there have been isolated reports of Kassams in Judea and Samaria, the full power of Kassam rockets has clearly not been brought to bear in those areas. Between the time the first shell hit Gush Katif and the time Sharon made his initial Disengagement announcement, almost three years passed. If it took less than three years of mortar attacks against Jewish Gaza for Israel's government to come up with the idea of running away, how long will it take for the "Convergence Plan" in Judea and Samaria to be taken out of its deep freeze?
6. Poll: Israelis Finished With Withdrawals
by Ezra HaLevi
A poll carried out by the Knesset channel found a majority of Israelis want no more withdrawals from parts of the Land of Israel – not even for "real peace."
The poll, conducted by the Dahaf Institute for the Knesset Channel – found that even in the case of a what was termed a “real peace deal,” 68 percent of Israelis would not agree to withdraw from the Golan Heights, 53 percent from Judea and Samaria and 86 percent from the Western Wall.
Just two weeks ago, former coalition chairman MK Avigdor Yitzchaki (Kadima) brought a bill requiring a referendum prior to any withdrawals from Jerusalem or the Golan Heights through its first reading, despite the opposition of the government, Meretz and Arab parties.
The poll sought to examine how Israelis would vote in such a referendum. A minority of 46 percent favored surrendering most of Judea and Samaria for a "real peace." 65 percent oppose any unilateral withdrawals from Judea and Samaria. 28 percent said they would support it.
Only eight percent believe that the government is able to reach a peace agreement with Syria, opposed to 86 percent against.
Asked whether the lands conquered in the 1967 Six Day War improved Israel’s security situation, 51 percent said it did and 29 percent said it worsened it.
A representative sample of five hundred Israeli adults took part in the survey.
Comment on This Story
7. Inventor of Pal-Kal Sentenced to Four Years
by Hillel Fendel
The inventor of the construction method used in Jerusalem's Versailles Hall, which collapsed in mid-wedding six years ago, killing 23, has been sent to jail for four years.
The sentencing judge wrote that Eli Ron is the "father of the original sin who is still convinced that his method is safe."
Engineers who helped build the building, Dan Sheffer and Shimon Kaufman, were sentenced to 22 months each, while an employee of the Pal-Kal company was sentenced to six months of public service works.
The Tragic Wedding
The Versailles Hall collapsed exactly six years ago, in May 2001, killing 23 wedding guests and injuring close to 350. It was termed the worst civilian disaster in Israel's history, occurring just as Israel was suffering a wave of Oslo War terrorist attacks. In the week before the collapse, a suicide terrorist murdered five people in Netanya, two Israelis were killed in separate terrorist shooting attacks, and a Rishon LeTzion man was murdered in Tul Karem after making an appointment to meet an Arab. Eleven other people were murdered in eight other Palestinian terrorist attacks that month.
Owners Sentenced Last Year
In November 2005, the owners of the Versailles Hall were sentenced to 30 months in prison for causing death by negligence. Though they saw a depression in the floor shortly before the collapse, the judge ruled that they chose to cover it up with a drinks bar rather than consult with an engineer. In addition, during renovations on the building some time before it collapsed, support beams were removed from the building.
However, most of the criticism surrounding the tragedy has always related to the Pal-Kal method with which the structure was built. The Israeli-patented method was ruled unacceptable by the Interior Ministry in 1996. However, many existing buildings were built with Pal-Kal beforehand, and some were built afterwards.
Ron was found guilty last December of causing death by negligence in having disseminated his invention. The ruling deemed his Pal-Kal method as "dangerous," saying it did not meet Israeli or other standards. "It is true that many buildings constructed in this way did not collapse," the judge wrote, "but the quality and danger of a construction method are judged in extreme situations - and in this case, extreme changes were made that led to the failure brought about by the Pal-Kal method."
The Pal-Kal method is a money-saver in that in place of reinforced steel installed between concrete layers, it uses corrugated boxes as the stress support system. However, the boxes can end up "floating" between the concrete layers if something goes wrong with the concrete or they way it is poured.
As a result of the Versailles collapse, the government established a national commission of inquiry, the City of Jerusalem waged its own internal investigation of the tragedy, and the Local Government Center instructed all municipalities to carry out a comprehensive check of the thousands of buildings using the Pal-Kal construction method. In 2005, all construction using the Pal-Kal method was outlawed.
Versailles and Sbarros
The tragic collapse indirectly saved up to 50 other lives three months later. City inspectors making the rounds of public buildings after the Versailles tragedy informed Noam Amar, the owner of the Sbarro's restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, that his building technically met all the requirements, but that it might be advisable for him to install extra supporting pillars. Even after he learned that the cost of the extra columns would be $110,000, Amar decided to go ahead with it. Shortly afterwards, in August 2001, 15 people were killed in a terrorist blast in his restaurant; engineers later told him that his extra precautions had prevented the building from collapsing further, thus saving the lives of possibly 50 other people in the restaurant at the time.
8. Audio: Bush Declined to Meet Chief Rabbi Metzger Over Pollard
A7 Radio's "Alex Traiman Show"
Chief Rabbi of Israel Yonah Metzger is one of few Israeli public officials to speak out on behalf of Jonathan Pollard. Alex speaks with the Chief Rabbi and Rabbi Pesach Lerner, who has visited Pollard on several occassions. Plus, Karen Hochberg organized a 5K Walk to raise funds for Israel in Great Neck.
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