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Friday November 20, 1998

Fund for Maccabiah victims planned

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- A Knesset committee is trying create an interim compensation fund by February for victims of the Maccabiah br
The fund would allow the families to receive money without waiting for the outcome of judicial proceedings.

In the July 1997 disaster at the start of the athletic games, four members of the Australian team died and many more were injured when a footbridge collapsed into the polluted Yarkon River in Tel Aviv.

Duby Weissglass, a lawyer representing the World Maccabi Union, explained that although Maccabi had a comprehensive insurance policy with a company called Phoenix, the firm could insure only for limited accidents and not for a catastrophe.

Because the Maccabiah is a national public event, Weissglass said, the state should participate in paying compensation.

Gad Neshitz, the Phoenix firm's lawyer, said some Israeli officials had tried to find a way of dividing the responsibility among the different bodies so that the state could further the compensation claims.

This attempt had failed because of the Finance Ministry, he said.

Finance Ministry representative Orit Lev said the treasury objects to the idea of first paying the money and only afterward deciding how to divide it, because it can lead to inflated sums that come out of the public's purse.

The interim compensation fund would allow the victims' families to receive compensation from the Finance Ministry, according to the agreements reached by their representatives and state officials.

Once the court case is over, the fund would be paid back by those found responsible for the disaster.

Ron Weiser, president of the Australian Zionist Federation, said the community still wants the suspension, if not the resignation, of the heads of the World Maccabi Union, Ron Bakalarz and Uzi Netanel.

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