The Evacuation-Compensation Law is written in such a way, so that the only redress for many of the items is through appropriate litigation steps.
This is built into the law.

It includes such items as: compensation for housing, for privately-owned businesses (since the self-employed collected no unemployment benefits), compensation to people who “fall between the cracks” due to bureacratic technicalities, payments for damages caused to possessions while they were in the containers, etc.

(Regarding the last item, Israel Resource News Agency was assured by The Ministry of Defence’s media advisor, that anyone whose possessions were damaged would be compensated, but they have to bring a suit to accomplish this.)

In order to cut down on the time and personal involvement necessary for such steps, the Center for Near East Policy Research would like to facilitate a a series of class action suits that will enable the largest possible number of former Gush Katif residents to receive what is theirs by law.

On the personal level, here’s the example of our own neighbor who is married to a young man who lived in Gush Katif from the age of 18 months.

After they married, they rented a caravan in Beit El for about 19 months, while he was stationed in Tfzat (he’s a captain in the IDF), and while she was completing her studies in Orot.

Then they moved back to Gush Katif, first to Ganei Tal, where his parents live, then to Atzmona.

Because of the time they rented a mobile home in Beit El, and because they moved from Ganei Tal to Atzmona one month after what was set, retroactively, as the cut off date (unknown to them at the time, of course), they are eligible to zero compensation, including the young man, who has lived in Gush Katif since infancy.They will have to prove in court that Katif was “the center of their lives” even when they temporarily lived elsewhere.

This is only one example.

There are many, many cases like theirs.

That is why class action suits at this time are so vital.

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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