Planning In Israel Research Articles

Central Regulation Versus Institutional Autonomy: Reforms in the Israeli Higher Education System

Israel's Planning and Grants Committee (PGC) was established in 1974 by the government as the planning and executive arm of the Council for Higher Education (CHE). Before its establishment, the government, through the Ministry of Finance, was involved directly in financing each higher education institution individually. Since the PGC's establishment the government withdrew gradually from its direct involvement in higher education except for determining its total annual allocation to the system to be channelled through the PGC. In a similar development, the universities have ceded to the authority of the PGC not only in fiscal matters, but also in planning and development. Thus, the PGC has become the most powerful organization in higher education. Its power in determining the budget of each institution and its planning and evaluation functions have limited considerably institutional autonomy in these areas. The aim of this study is an analytical exposition of the processes which have transformed Israeli higher education from an autonomous decentralized system toward centralization. Specific problems, challenges, and exigencies confronting higher education in Israel will be discussed in the light of similar developments in other higher education systems.

Radio and Family Planning in Israel: Letters to Broadcasters

Journal Article Radio and Family Planning in Israel: Letters to Broadcasters Get access Ronny Shtarkshall, Ronny Shtarkshall Senior Lecturer 1School of Public Health and in the School of Education at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Eileen Basker Eileen Basker 2Teaches sociology and anthropology in the School of Education at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and in the School of Medicine at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Communication, Volume 35, Issue 2, June 1985, Pages 69–81, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1985.tb02234.x Published: 07 February 2006

Climate-adapted building in Israel how far has our knowledge influenced building practice?

When I came to Israel (then Palestine) 50 years ago and inquired about the influence of the summer climate on construction and town-planning I received only o n e answer: the cool breeze comes from the west! I began intensive studies and succeeded in assembling a team of specialists: for physical problems Prof. Goldberg (formerly from Zeiss~lena), the Profs. Strauss and Gruschka for questions of hygiene, and the Director of the Meteorological Service of the then Mandatory Government, Mr. Feige, for meteorological problems. Theoretical considerations and calculations led to results which could be confirmed by subsequent measurements. An analysis in the form of a Table will demonstrate the variety of the problems (see Table 1). A large-scale measurement programme of the Government Meteorological Service (then of the British Mandate), carried out in 1946, confirmed that part of my theoretical considerations and calculations which was being investigated. This programme dealt with a comparison of two equal flats in the coastal plain, one apa r tmen t facing north and south, and the other one east and I quote the results word for word: combined amounts of insolation received by the walls facing north and south are less than the combined amounts reaching walls facing east and west. And further: the daylight hour winds have an important northerly component, while the night-time land breezes have a prominent southerly component . Therefore, we have known for nearly 40 years that the main walls should face north and south -a knowledge of basic importance for construction and town planning in Israel. Not much later the research institute at the Haifa Technion was established, so that under the direction of Prof. Givoni our knowledge could be considerably expanded. I would now like to give a condensed summary of our knowledge and of the most important measures which ought to be taken in our daily practice. To begin with: we know under what conditions a person feels continously comfortable! Although we should not underestimate the problems of winter, we wish to restrict ourselves here to summer problems. In summer the most important task is to take care of sufficient heat removal from the human body. Since the body inside a room is only in slight motion or at rest and therefore tends to disperse heat mainly by radiation, it is our first and foremost task to see to an optimal cooling of the radiating surfaces, i.e., the inner surfaces of walls, ceilings and floors. If we cannot obtain a sufficient radiative dispersion of the body heat we must endeavor to increase heat dispersal by conduction to the air. This is attained by setting the surrounding air in motion. The moving airstream frees the skin of heated air, surrounding the body, which may reach on hot days 33 -34 °C. It directs cooler air toward the skin, resulting in a refreshed feeling, provided the air temperature does not exceed 31 °C. So as not to cause damage to health an evenly agitated airstream should fan the body from all sides. The largest refreshing effect will be obtained with relatively light air motion (velocity of about 0 .51.5 m/s), when the danger to health is also minimal. So the basic hygienic facts are known to us, and in consequence the task of the town or village planner and the architect as builder of single buildings becomes quite clear: he must arrange for the cooling of the interior walls, ceilings and floors, and in many parts of the country, for an adequate motion of the air within the rooms. The means of achieving this are again, in principle, well-known, although we still require further detailed knowledge about

Bargaining in Physical Planning in Israel: A comparison with the British Experience

The latest research in the field of physical planning in England indicates that there is an impressive rise in bargaining between the planning authorities and applicants for building permits. The physical planning system in England has undergone another process of change in the last decade: a growing flexibility manifested in the change from ‘development plans’, which are binding plans, to ‘structure plans’ that present only general principles of planning to be taken into consideration by planning authorities when granting building permits. Thus the following question presents itself: Are the two processes of change in the area of physical planning related to each other? Is the rising amount of bargaining with planning authorities due to the growing flexibility in the physical planning system; or is the rising bargaining in the area of physical planning, as J. Jowell suggests, due mainly to a more general phenomenon of increasing corporatism in English politics; or to both of them? To put it in more general terms: Is the increase in bargaining within the functioning of the physical planning system related to factors internal to the physical planning system or external to it?

Better Med than Dead

Vera Rich reports on Israel's plan to save the Dead Sea from drying up by building a canal linking it to the Mediterranean

Middle east negotiations: Israel's plan for the occupied territories

Middle east negotiations: Israel's plan for the occupied territories

Geographical Aspects of National Planning in Israel: The Management of Limited Resources

To modernize development Israeli planners utilize regional resources in a non-conventional way and consider the resource base as mobile. This results in a shift of emphasis in regional development, including in certain cases a radically new appreciation of the development potential of a region, even when formerly considered to be 'useless'. The pre-eminent example of resource mobility is the National Water Carrier, which not only integrates the entire national water supply network, but extends it into the arid northern Negev. This involves delicate problems of environmental management. To achieve greater efficiency of water use, drip irrigation is substituted for sprinkling, village irrigation networks are directed by centralized electronic control, and the overall water supply is augmented by artificial prolongation of rainfall. Three examples of unconventional resource development in the arid south of Israel illustrate these modern planning techniques. Each of them makes full use of the potential provided by the seasonal difference to the European market. In the Aravah section of the rift valley harvest coincides with midwinter time in Europe. Vegetables are raised on alluvial soil in wadi-beds, thus incurring risk of floods and frost in addition to the conventional risks of farming. In the north-western Negev tomatoes are raised in glasshouses, involving high capital investment, but bringing about decisive economies in water, the most limited resource, and making soil and travel time to the 'fields' negligible items. These, and the even more unconventional 'Southern Project' still in the planning stage, use as their major resources high capital investment, well-trained manpower, and innovative, non-traditional planning.

Legal Aspects of Town Planning in Israel. By M. D. Gouldman. Institute for Legislative Research and Comparative Law, Jerusalem, 1966, 187 pp. $ 2.00.

Legal Aspects of Town Planning in Israel. By M. D. Gouldman. Institute for Legislative Research and Comparative Law, Jerusalem, 1966, 187 pp. $ 2.00.

Rural Development through Regional Planning in Israel

A novel approach to planning of agricultural production and comprehensive rural development is described in this paper. According to this concept, regional development has a two-fold function: vertical in planning of agricultural production by connecting macro-planning at the national level and micro-planning at the level of individual production units; horizontal in integration of agriculture, industry, and services from the economic, social, organisational, and physical point of view. The institutional structure of implementation is analysed and described. The concept of regional planning described evolved out of the attempts to solve socio-economic problems of the rural population of Afro-Asian origin which had to be settled in Israel.

Arab League

At the invitation of President Nasser of the United Arab Republic, the heads of state of eleven of the thirteen member countries of the Arab League met in Cairo on January 13–16, 1964, to consider Israel's plan for the partial diversion of the waters of the Jordan River for the purpose of irrigating the Negev Desert. (The chiefs of staff of the eleven Arab countries met in Cairo on December 6–9, 1963, to discuss the Jordan waters question, but no statement was issued.)