The demands presented this week by the Defense Ministry as a condition for transferring the IDF’s intelligence units to the Negev have raised again the question of the utility of relocating military camps to the south.
A new study by researchers from the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion, in cooperation with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, published in recent months, found that there is a disturbing gap between optimistic forecasts and reality. While the state estimated a potential of about 6,000-7,000 career soldiers, from which only 2,500 to 3,600 would actually move to the Negev, the projection of the research team stands on a few hundred permanent service men and women only.
