KARMIEL - Christian evangelicals to the rescue?
Another one million Christian evangelical tourists that would flock to the north of the country would solve the region’s unemployment crisis, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a conference on development of the northern Galilee region.
“The economic growth allows for another reform, the advancement of the periphery,” he said. “The solution is highways, land reform, and development of employment sources.”
According to Bibi, the major source of employment would be the “mega project of the Christian evangelical world center on the shore of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee.)”
The finance minister noted there are tens of millions of believers in the United States and elsewhere, including five million in China alone.
“We’re estimating a one million growth in the number of tourists a year,” Netanyahu said. “People need to organize this, maids, waiters, tour guides - thousands of jobs.”
Arabs protest
On another front, Education Minister Limor Livnat, who also spoke at the conference, said the inadequate education system in the north led to the expansion of gaps between the rich and the poor.
“This is the reason the percentage of Mizrahis (Jews of Middle Eastern origin) in senior academic echelons is tiny, about 3-8 percent, while the percentage of Arabs is one percent,” she said.
Meanwhile, dozens of Arab-Israeli activists demonstrated at the entrance to Karmiel to protest the conference, saying the initiative is meant to develop the Jewish sector in the north at the expense of the area’s Arab residents.
“Those who want to develop the Galilee should take the Arab population into account,” protester Muhammad Kna’an told Ynet, and added Arab-Israelis are facing serious problems but “nobody is looking at those problems, and instead they come to hold a conference and encourage Jewish emigration to the Galilee.”
