Meir Spiegler, CEO of the Israel Electric Corporation, said Monday that "communities with religious residents have not been cut off from the electricity grid so as not to harm them on Shabbat. We connected them to electricity and cut off other communities." Spiegler made the remarks at a conference of the Association of CEOs and Secretaries of Local Authorities held at the Queen of Sheba Hotel in Eilat.
"On Friday there was a planned power outage, but it can't be that some places are cut off and others aren't. Last Friday night, there were religious people who work with hot plates and electrical appliances that as soon as there were power cuts, the devices would not return to work and harm their Shabbat - so a firm order was issued to connect to the electricity grid before Shabbat begins all those communities where a religious majority lives and to disconnect from the electricity grid other places in the country."
The ultra-Orthodox communities were not cut off (archive), photo: Tal Cohen
Spiegler added that various parts of the south of the country where there are cowsheds, in order to prevent animal mortality, have also been connected to the electricity supply and as a result other places have been cut off.
Spiegler described what happened last weekend: "On Friday, unfortunately, there was a lot of improper conduct. 300,000 were cut off from the power grid. Unfortunately they didn't take a reasonable margin, no one did it maliciously. There was a lack of electricity, and this lack had to be balanced by power outages. We didn't want to be on a day when power plants stop working and there is no electricity supply to communities in the country.
"The State of Israel is not doing enough, if at all, to eliminate bureaucracy and simplify clumsiness. Unfortunately, this leads to places that no normal country wants to be. It was an unusual and very difficult case."
Spiegler added, "Unfortunately in the Negev there is no governance. There is no transmission in the south because we deploy lines and the Bedouin take them. We are unable to complete this activity of this line that will carry clean energy from the south to the center of the country, even though we are coordinating with the security forces and it is still not going. Everyone is aware of the problem."
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