Shaffir: Israel gave extra $172m to settlements in winter Knesset session
Haaretz
By Jonathan Lis | Mar. 23, 2014
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.581405
Nearly 600 million shekels ($172 million) were transferred to the settlements through budget adjustments that the government requested from the Knesset during the winter session, according to MK Stav Shaffir (Labor).
Shaffir, who collected the statistics, said that, among other things, the Knesset approved transferring 133 million shekels to the World Zionist Organization’s settlement division; 36 million shekels in compensation for the settlement construction freeze in 2009; 24 million for “young settlement” in the West Bank; and 28 million shekels to complete work in the Beit El settlement.
These sums were not included in the state budget passed last July. They were brought to the Knesset Finance Committee as requests for budgetary changes, even though in most cases these allocations were planned beforehand, she said. For example, compensation for the 2009 building freeze has been allocated to local authorities in the West Bank annually since 2010, but these funds were not included in the budget.