The chairman of the Public Inquiries Committee, MK Israel Eichler, spoke today (Wednesday) in the Knesset plenary, describing the terrible suffering of children, women, and the elderly who came to celebrate the Lag BaOmer celebration in Zion Rashbi, and were queued for long hours at stations and checkpoints.
According to him, even the disabled who were traveling in Ezer Mitzion vehicles were blocked during the transportation collapse.
""The passengers are to blame - that's what we heard from the minister's response to the collapse in Meron," said Eichler. "The police and the Ministry of Transportation have no responsibility for leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded for hours on the roads and at stations. Shame and disgrace.
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""The Ministry of Transportation declares that a maximum number of worshippers arriving at Meron should be set. It blames the passengers who stormed the road, trying to squeeze into buses that didn't arrive. I couldn't believe my ears. The police brought cavalry in violation of the Knesset's decision not to allow horses in instead of buses.".
Eichler continued: "The Ministry of Transportation did indeed bring in a lot of buses, but the decision to prohibit private vehicles from entering parking lots in nearby communities, which would have taken half the load off public transportation, is creating a predetermined catastrophe.".
""The secular government blames the travelers, because if they didn't come to Meron today, there wouldn't be overcrowding...""
According to him, "All of this stems from the government's desire that fewer people come to Meron on Lag BaOmer. That's why roads are not being prepared and parking lot infrastructure is not being paved, even though the state is investing hundreds of billions in roads in the Galilee and throughout the country. Only in the Meron area do we drive on narrow roads. On Lag BaOmer, tens of thousands of private vehicles are prohibited from coming to Meron, and the entire public depends on buses that have no parking space, and they block all the roads.".
Eichler added: "The state ignores the fact that the Rashbi's memorial in Meron is the most visited place in the Land of Israel after the Western Wall. About a million Jews come to Meron every year, and hundreds of thousands come on Lag BaOmer, despite all the risks of the arduous journey. If they had allowed regular transportation, more Jews would come and more prayers for the salvation of Israel.".
Eichler said ironically: "I hereby request and invite the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who is coming to Israel this week, to visit Meron - like at the Western Wall. I am sure that they will immediately prepare parking lots and open the roads. He will travel back safely and we will remain with the infrastructure for the benefit of the immigrants to Meron.""
He added that there have been cases in which the state has uprooted an entire mountain for parking lots and ceremonies near Tiberias, in honor of one guest who came for one day.
Eichler congratulated the Minister of Finance, Litzman and Gafni for establishing a special headquarters to invest hundreds of millions of shekels in developing roads and parking lots in the Meron area, in order to "stop the attempt to prevent Jews from reaching Meron through transportation and police abuse, which brings the shame that repeats itself every year of harming hundreds of thousands of people, whose only desire is to pray to God in the righteous Zion.".
