Haifa<\/a> or Tiberias discovered a better quality of life. Why would they come back to closed shops and buses every two hours?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\nThe economic toll extends beyond services to the fields themselves. Ofer Barnea, CEO of the Upper Galilee Agriculture Company, describes a landscape of destruction and waiting. \u201cAbout 3,000 dunams of orchards near the border were destroyed, mainly apple groves,\u201d he said. \u201cFarmers have not received compensation. Bureaucracy is slow, it takes months and years. Unlike the south, where support programs are functioning, here in the north nothing has arrived. They talk, they appoint committees, they change project managers, but on the ground, nothing reaches us.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the war, he explained, no foreign workers or labor contractors could enter. Harvests were lost, irrigation systems burned, and orchards uprooted. \u201cThe labor force has returned now, but the damage is long term. When an orchard burns, it takes years to replace. Egg and poultry farms were badly hit, and this affects the entire country, not just the north. Food security is a national issue,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n
Barnea, like Levinger, insists the crisis could be an opening. \u201cIf funds arrive, recovery will be quick. This is the opportunity to provide planting grants for new orchards, to finally build water reservoirs. After war and drought, we need strategic water infrastructure. The plans exist. Everything is approved. The money has not arrived. That is the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sense of neglect runs deep across these conversations. Levinger does not hide his frustration. \u201cHaifa and Yokne\u2019am receive the same benefits as the Upper Galilee. So for a business, why would they come here, where everything is harder? Good air and flowing streams are not enough. We need to create an added value, a unique community. Otherwise, companies will always choose elsewhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And yet he insists on hope. \u201cIt is amazing to see the embrace from communities abroad, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, during and after the war. This warmth gives us strength,\u201d he said. \u201cWe must emerge stronger. It is the moment to build something different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words echo a choice Israel has faced many times: whether its periphery will remain a frontier of sacrifice or become a frontier of opportunity. In the Upper Galilee, leaders are warning that time is running out, and that the promises on paper must finally reach the ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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