Capital may skirt rules for PM’s father

The Jerusalem Municipal Naming Committee is expected to vote Thursday in favor of naming a Jerusalem interchange after the recently deceased Benzion Netanyahu, Maariv reported Monday.

The honor is to be bestowed on the prime minister’s late father less than three months after his death in April, and would seem to be contrary to the city’s policy of maintaining a three-year waiting period following the death of public figures before naming streets after them.

The city’s legal adviser, however, says that there’s no reason the historian should have to wait to have cars driving over Netanyahu’s namesake. Amnon Marchav noted that while the municipality’s rules regarding a waiting period apply to the naming of alleys, squares, parks and roads, nowhere does the policy explicitly include interchanges.

The city plans to name an as-yet-unbuilt interchange off the Begin Highway after the noted historian, according to the report.

According to Maariv, the advisory committee’s stance has been challenged by many whose loved ones were rejected by the committee due to the waiting period’s regulations.

Councilwoman Yael Entebbi, a member of the Names Committee, rejected the justifications for the move. “There is no fundamental difference between an alley, an interchange and a road… We are speaking about the prime minister’s father… but we need to treat him like we do everyone else. There are tens of people who wanted streets or squares named after their loved ones, but there was nothing available. They would have been happy with an intersection.”

In response to the criticism, the municipality issued a statement reiterating its stance. “Interchanges in commemoration [of someone] do not fall under the same criteria that apply to naming streets. The Commission of Public Figures, which is a professional, independent committee, recommended that the municipality unanimously commemorate Professor Benzion Netanyahu.”

Netanyahu died April 30 at the age of 102.