Haifa mayor attacks Netanyahu for seeking to delay ammonia tank closure
Opposition MKs also admonish PM over efforts to stall facility’s shuttering, accuse him of putting business interests over residents
The mayor of Haifa and a number of Israeli politicians took Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to task on Tuesday after he sought to delay the court-ordered closure of a controversial ammonia storage tank in the northern city.
On Monday, Netanyahu met with Economy Minister Eli Cohen and Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin, as well as representatives of other government ministries, and asked them to explore the possibility of keeping the massive tank operating for another two years until an alternative is found, Channel 2 television reported.
However, his office said that he had discussed a postponement of only weeks, not years.
In response to the Channel 2 report, Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav accused Netanyahu of endangering the lives of the residents of the Haifa area “for the needs of a major tycoon.”
“Much to my great sorrow the prime minister abandoned a million and a half people, their security, for the needs of a major tycoon from Miami Beach at the expense of the health and security of the health and security of the residents here,” Army Radio quoted him as saying in reference to Jules Trump, whose company Haifa Chemicals owns the ammonia storage tank.
Netanyahu’s bureau has rejected claims that the prime minister’s acquaintance with Jules Trump influenced his involvement in the manner.
“Netanyahu has not spoken with Jules Trump for over a year, and has not spoken with him about the tank at all. The delay that was debated today is for a number of weeks and not two years, and that is in order to find a way to prevent the firing of thousands of workers,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on Monday.
Local officials, led by Yahav, say that tens of thousands of people could die if the 12,000-ton-capacity tank should rupture, and that even more would be at risk if a delivery ship is hit by a missile. Lebanese terror group Hezbollah has threatened to target the tank with rockets in any future conflict with Israel. A Haifa District Court order requires that the tank be emptied and shut down by the end of next month.
Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, who has voiced his support for the tank’s closure, said efforts by Netanyahu to delay the emptying of the ammonia storage facility were “dangerous.”
“The prime minister’s attempt to torpedo the emptying of the ammonia tank are dangerous and it is difficult to understand his motives,” he wrote on Facebook.
“During three terms [as prime minister] he did not think it was his job to intervene, while the largest bomb in the Middle East continues to endanger the residents of Haifa and its suburbs,” he added.
Zionist Union MK Amir Peretz, who previously served as environmental minister, said that that the failure to find a solution earlier raises questions about Netanyahu’s suitability to be prime minister and that Hezbollah leader Hassan “Nasrallah sends [his] thanks to Netanyahu from the bottom of his heart.”
“Netanyahu, who continuously frightens the citizens of Israel about an Iranian atom bomb, ignores the clear threats of Nasrallah who sees the ammonia tank and refineries as a potential atom bomb,” Channel 2 quoted him as saying.
In a post on her Twitter account that was later deleted, Zionist Union MK Yael Cohen-Paran attacked Netanyahu for holding a meeting on delaying the ammonia tank’s closure on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“On the day that we remember the millions who suffocated in the gas chambers, the prime minister decides to intervene in favor of an ammonia tank that endangers the lives of millions of men and women with death from gases,” she said.
Cohen-Paran later issued an apparent apology on Twitter for her comment, saying that “I had no intention to compare ammonia to the Holocaust,” although she added that she was “happy you all woke up” as a result of the “provocative” tweet.
In 2013, the government decided to shut down the ammonia tank in Haifa Bay by 2017 and to set up a new production plant in the Negev instead, out of concerns for the safety of the citizens of Haifa. The government also committed to ensuring a continuous supply of the compound until the new production plant was up and running.
Following the publication of a report commissioned by the city of Haifa that found the ammonia operations posed a serious risk to the population, a court ordered the closure of the tank where the ammonia is stored after arriving by ship in Haifa Bay. A tender to set up the new plant in the Negev failed in 2016 due to a lack of bidders, leaving the new production facility far from being built.
Earlier this month the Supreme Court banned delivery ships from bringing more ammonia to resupply the tank.
Shoshanna Solomon and Stuart Winer contributed to this report.
