The Central District Committee for Planning and Building will convene on next week to determine whether to move forward with a new plan for Palmachim Beach that would officially nix the resort village planned for the area and instead deem it a national park.

Two years into a long public struggle that began in 2008, the government ordered the district committee to reassess the plans for the beach – which in turn, called for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) to propose a suitable alternative plan. Almost three years later, however, no new option had surfaced and no compensation proposal for the developers had arisen. By December 2012, the resort plans therefore emerged back on the district committee’s table.

A protest against Palmachim Beach privatization :”The beach is NOT for sale” (Photo: Green Course)

While the developer still holds the rights to the land today, INPA representatives submitted a proposal for the territory’s transformation into a national park and nature reserve to the district committee’s steering board on January 2. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), which is among the country’s first environmental organizations, launched an online petition to cancel the resort plan that has accrued thousands of signatures.

A number of organizations, including Adam Teva V’Din (Israel Union for Environmental Defense), Green Course, Shatil and the Committee to Save Palmachim Beach have been working with SPNI. A letter against the privatization plans come also from MK Dov Khenin (Hadash). “Israel has too few open natural beaches, and it is the duty of the state to protect them, for the sake of preserving natural treasures and the landscapes and for the welfare and quality of life of the citizens,” he said.