“A decision to establish an airport at Nevatim would be a strategic decision of influence on the future of the Negev," Shalom says.
By SHARON UDASINVice Premier Silvan Shalom_311(photo credit: Reuters/Mike Cassese)
Dozens of mayors from across the country gathered Thursday in Tel Aviv to promote the establishment of a second international airport for the country in the Negev, at the behest of Deputy Prime Minister and Negev and Galilee Development Minister Silvan Shalom.“We are at capacity now and we must do everything so that the decision to establish an airport in Nevatim will go before the government without delay,” Shalom told the mayors.“A decision to establish an airport at Nevatim would be a strategic decision of influence on the future of the Negev.”Rosh Ha’ayin Mayor Moshe Sinai criticized the government for forbidding people to use leaf-blowers due to the noise while at the same time allowing for huge amounts of noise from airplanes landing and departing over the center of the country.Beersheba Mayor Rubik Danilovich stressed that having such an airport together with Road 6 and the National Railway would “entirely eliminate the term ‘periphery.’” Establishing an international airport in the Negev is also the preferable choice to green groups, such as the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, over a former alternative of Megiddo, in the North
