In a statement issued by the Attorney General to Minister of Religious Services Michael Malkieli and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, it was recommended to urgently advance the expropriation of the site and the transfer of full possession to the state. The letter also recommended the establishment of a designated state body to take over management. The letter details glaring failures in the current management of the site.
The signatories to the recommendation are Deputy Attorney General Carmit Yulis and Deputy State Prosecutor Orit Kotb, and it was written that it was accepted "by all the relevant professional bodies in government ministries."
Revelry in Meron 2023 (Archive) // Credit: Psalm Productions
The letter states that there is significant difficulty in managing the site in a beneficial manner when there are private entities, other than the state, claiming rights to manage the site. Among the areas in which there were difficulties in the current management were the appointment of a manager for the site, issues of removing squatters in order to expand the areas to the public, developing infrastructure and issuing permits to improve the site for public reception, insurance of liability for the site through a central state entity, and financing the continued development of the site.
The person now in charge of managing the site is the Committee of Five, in which, alongside the state representative, there are four representatives of the various endowments claiming rights to it. The endowments oppose the expropriation and claim that its management has improved significantly. The site's performance procedures have been underway for many years.
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