The Knesset's Finance Committee on Tuesday approved the allocation of NIS 44 million (roughly $12 million) in favor of West Bank settlements. Some NIS 17 million of the NIS 44 million will serve as compensation for the Migron [2] evacuees.
The budget was approved unanimously in the absence of all opposition representatives. Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni [3] (United Torah Judaism) mocked the opposition's absence from the debate.
Meretz Chairman and committee member MK Zahava Gal-On, who did not attend the meeting, later slammed the decision. "As state budgets face lateral cuts and welfare services collapse, the settlers get free access to the Treasury's funds as millions are weekly extorted at the Knesset," she said.
"The radical Right is behaving as if the State's only role is to fund their messianic delusions beyond the Green Line, and we are paying for the Netanyahu administration's capitulation in education, health and police positions who suffer from lack of funding due to the government's faulty priorities."
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