Deputy Premier David Levy hotly defended Project Renewal against charges by opposition Knesset members that it has become a bureaucratic mess. Levy, who is also Minister of Housing, invited the critics to tour some Project Renewal neighborhoods with him and after that, he said, he would agree to a general debate on the issue.
Project Renewal is a slum clearance and rehabilitation effort undertaken by the Israel government and the Jewish Agency in partnership with overseas Jewry. Labor MK Shoshana Arbeli-Almoslino complained that Premier Menachem Begin had promised five years ago that 160 slum neighborhoods all over the country would be rehabilitated. But the project has sunk into a “swamp of bureaucracy and intrigues, ” she said.
Levy reported that in the last three years, some 4000 new dwelling units have been built, 1400 others enlarged and 15,000 renovated. He said about 1,000 families have been moved to other neighborhoods. Levy accused the previous Labor government of creating the conditions which the Likud government is trying to eliminate or at least ameliorate.
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