A long-running debate between environmentalists and business interests on whether Israel should allow the United States to build a powerful radio transmitter in the Negev desert appears to coming to a head.
The National Planning and Building Council, charged with making a recommendation to the government, began its final deliberations on the matter Tuesday.
The issue goes back several years to a U.S. request to build a Voice of America transmitter relay station, designed to beam U.S. government-controlled news programs and American propaganda into the former Soviet Union.
Environmentalists and residents in the area oppose the project, saying that electromagnetic radiation from the transmitters would harm nearby residents as well as interfere with the internal guidance systems of migratory birds passing over the region. The tall and powerful transmission antennas would be spread over a wide area in an unspoiled region of the Negev.
But supporters claim the project will create jobs and help industry in the region.
The National Planning and Building Council failed to reach a decision Tuesday but its recommendation is expected shortly.
Environment Minister Yossi Sarid has said he opposes the project and has instructed his representative in the council to vote against the plan.
Environmentalists opposed to the VOA station braved snowy weather to demonstrate outside the building where the council met.
Support for the project is headed by Shlomo Haruvi, vice president of the Elbit electronics company, which has a major economic stake in the project.
Haruvi claimed in a radio interview Monday that “the station itself will become a tourist attraction, as is the case with technological monuments elsewhere in the world.”
His claim was termed a “bad joke” by Micky Lipshitz, the director of the environmental department of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
“It will close off an area of some 15,000 acres and turn the site into a forest of antennas,” Lipshitz said.
Although the bitter debate continues in Israel, American interest in building the transmitter appears to have waned since the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the disappearance of the communist danger.
If Israel rejects the project, the VOA transmitting station is likely to be moved to Turkey.
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