2013 elections: the parties present an upgraded environmental platform

The right links environmental issues to heritage, and the left to social justice • Lands and open spaces policy receives the widest attention • Other prominent issues: public transportation, the energy sector and health • The review does not include small parties

On the eve of the elections to the 19th Knesset, Haim Va Sabiba - the umbrella organization of environmental organizations - publishes a comprehensive comparison of the environmental chapters in the platforms of the various parties. From the analysis of the umbrella organization, it appears that in preparation for the 2013 elections, many parties decided to show voters that they take environmental issues seriously.

According to Naor Yerushalmi, CEO of Haim and Environment, most of the parties that published a full election platform significantly upgraded the environmental chapters in their platforms compared to the previous platform of 2009. However, about half of the parties expected to pass the blocking percentage did not publish a platform at all or published a very short platform.

"The particularly prominent issues in the new policies are investment in public transportation, distribution of gas profits, preservation of open spaces, treatment of hazards and infections that harm health and protection of animal rights," says Yerushalmi. The review was prepared by Haim and Sabiba in collaboration with students from the Clinic for Environmental Practice and Policy at Bar-Ilan University. It should be noted that the Likud Beitenu party completely avoided publishing a platform for the elections.

Editor's note: In the comprehensive review, the positions of: the Jewish Home, Labor, the Movement, Hadash, Kadima, Yesh Atid, Likud-Israel Beitenu, Meretz and Shas appear. Small parties were not included in the survey, that is, those that the surveyors decided would not pass the threshold

Among the main conclusions arising from the analysis of the bedding:

• The religious parties tend to link the issue of environmental quality to religious imperatives. The Jewish Home party links it to the value of love of the land, and Shas links the protection of the environment to the imperative to protect the divine creation. Kadima links the environment to the Israeli identity and heritage landscapes. The Labor parties, Yesh Atid, the Movement, Hadash, Meretz and Yisrael Beitenu also link the issue to social issues, health and quality of life.
• In general, parties with a limited environmental platform focus on the "classic" aspects of the environment - mainly the open spaces, while the parties with a more comprehensive platform present a broad context of the environment, including the social context, and deal with, among other things, ownership and responsibility for natural resources, and the promotion of public transportation.
• The topics that received the most weight in terms of their scope (number of words) in all the articles are: in first place land and open space policy, in second place public transportation, and in third and fourth place (nearly) the energy sector and hazards and pollution. In the field of animal protection, long texts were found, but mainly in the platforms of only two parties (Ha-Mohvah and Meretz), and therefore the figure does not indicate that the issue is given high importance among all the parties.
• In the platforms of most of the parties there is a reference to the issue of natural resources, but only about half of the parties directly refer to the issue of profit distribution and gas export, and there is almost no reference to the issue of the environmental damage involved in the extraction of natural resources and responsibility for their prevention and treatment. Among the key statements in the platforms: the movement parties, the Jewish Home, Meretz and Hadash demand to increase the public's profit from natural resources, and Hadash even calls for their nationalization; The work and the movement call for planning the production of natural resources in a way that will also meet the needs of future generations; The Jewish Home calls for the establishment of the fund for the distribution of oil profits, which was decided upon following the conclusions of the "Shishinsky Committee"; Meretz demands the replacement of the oil law (which was enacted 60 years ago) and the cancellation of the plan to extract oil from oil shale in the Halla Valley.
• Among the parties that directly refer to the issue of planning reform, Kadima, which in the outgoing Knesset opposed the planning reform promoted by the government, calls for the "removal of barriers" in planning and the establishment of dedicated planning bodies for planning approval and licensing in the areas of transportation and infrastructure. On the other hand, the parties of the movement, Labor Hadash and Meretz demand to stop the planning reform, and instead promote a reform in the field of licensing and strengthen the manpower in the planning systems. The movement and Meretz also demand the repeal of the Hodlim Law which led to the establishment of committees parallel to the district committees for planning and construction, and Meretz also demands the abolition of all institutions whose purpose is to circumvent the normal planning system, and subject the security system to the planning and construction laws.
• On the subject of preserving the open spaces, there is a wide variety of opinions in the various platforms: the Jewish Home party demands that settlement and construction be promoted in all parts of the country; Labor, the Movement, Yesh Atid and Meretz call for the preservation of the open areas, while Labor, Hadash and Meretz also call for the strengthening and densification of existing settlements over the establishment of new settlements; Whereas Shas calls for the promotion of construction that takes nature into account.
• Three parties refer to the need for regional and cross-border cooperation on environmental issues (Yesh Atid, Meretz and Hadash).