Finance Minister Yair Lapid joins Minister of Environmental Affairs Yair Peretz and other opponents of the planned Eilat rail line. Lapid feels the 40 billion NIS price tag is unjustifiable as is the damage to the environment that would result in the construction of the rail line.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu feels the construction of the line would result in a revolutionary change since it would connect the port city to other areas of the country.

Some experts explain that plan is a poor one for the cost is simply too extravagant. They explain it would be far less expensive an far more cost effective to develop the road to and from Eilat to accommodate trucks and permit travel on a safer faster modern roadway. This they explain would benefit everyone, spare the environmental damage and save enormous sums of money that will never be recovered since the railway line is not an economically viable plan.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)