In a special panel of the Besheva Economic Conference, the co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement presented the main points of the Moving Eastward (Eastward Ho!) Campaign for massive building in Judea and Samaria as part of the solution to the housing crisis, a campaign which has won wide support by experts and professionals.
In a special session in the conference held by Besheva and Arutz 7, the co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, presented the main principles of the Moving Eastward campaign, which calls for massive building in Judea and Samaria as a solution to the housing crisis and the cost of housing in Israel.
The moderator, economist Eran Bat Tal, opened the session with a “challenging” question addressed to Katsover and Matar asking if the two women have given up on ideology and have therefore chosen to turn to the economic benefits of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Yehudit Katsover answered emphatically, stating that the two things are integrally involved with each other.
“Building in the Land of Israel is an ideology, thinking economically in the Land of Israel is an ideology. We learned this from our father Avraham, who bought a plot of land and the biblical story dwells on the details of the price, etc., because economics is ideology. Buying land in the Land of Israel, in Judea and Samaria, is sovereignty”.
Katsover and Matar presented a slide that showed the support for the Moving Eastward campaign by dozens of members of Knesset from a wide variety of parties. The two women emphasized that their group is not political, however it wins the support of many members of Knesset who “understand that Judea and Samaria is the solution and not the problem".
“There is no way other than building in Judea and Samaria”, said Katsover, citing the research that the Sovereignty Movement commissioned, on the dramatic economic ramifications of massive building in Judea and Samaria up to thirty kilometers from Tel Aviv, which is now more densely populated than the Gaza Strip. While in Gaza, the figure is 8100 people per square kilometer, in Tel Aviv, the figure is 9100 people for a similar area.
Another speaker at the session was Eran Rawls, the CEO of the Center for Israel Constructions, an enthusiastic supporter of the Moving Eastward plan, who says that the crisis in density is much worse than just a problem, in his words. Housing density has ramifications for the aliyah absorption and retention of the younger generation in Israel. “Very few people are sure that their children and grandchildren will be able to buy an apartment in Israel. Today, a young couple cannot buy an apartment in all parts of Israel, and soon, not even in Judea and Samaria”.
“Israel has turned the process of buying an apartment into an oil well”, says Rawls. “Land to build an apartment in Kiryat Gat, which cost 30-40 thousand until 18 years ago, is sold today for 500 thousand shekels. People talk about Bibi -for or against – but this is not important. The important thing is to keep the children and grandchildren in Israel. Today, even renting an apartment is rising. In the past year, rent for an apartment increased by thirty percent. There are places where the prices of apartments have increased by forty percent. A young couple cannot afford an apartment. They need equity capital of a million shekels, and even this is not enough to buy an apartment”.
“The law for every corner of Judea and Samaria is like for any corner in Tel Aviv in Sharon or the Golan”, states Rawls, who demands that the Israeli public insist on getting answers from the politicians on this matter of dealing with the cost of housing. “Sixty five percent of the cost of a new apartment goes to the state through the cost of land, VAT, taxes, etc. The state is rich and the people are poor”.
“Of course, I am in favor of building in Judea and Samaria and as much as possible”, declared Rawls. “We need a hundred thousand housing units per year. We are losing our children to other countries. A large Israeli community has sprung up in Cyprus because with a half hour flight they can live at a quarter of the cost of the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The current reality will cause a decline in the birthrate, families will be smaller. This will have an effect on the ability to educate the children”.
Aharoni Neubauer, CEO of the Gush Etzion Development Company, told of the goal that he set for himself when he took office, to define Judea and Samaria as the solution and not as the problem, and he described the movement of business people and industry eastward. He noted that the move of many industrial centers to Judea and Samaria has become a solution to many other problems besides the cost of rent and building. Among other things, the move eastward solves the problem of traffic jams, air pollution and other things. “Industrial areas are filling up quickly. It has become a quiet economic revolution. We manage to bring everyone to us”, says Neubauer, who lamented the reality that Civil Administration does not release lands for continued building and expansion, which leads to a rise in costs, the source of which is the widening gap between supply and demand.
Shalev Fima, head of Har Hevron Council Headquarters, also supports the Moving Eastward initiative, stating that it is a necessary and vital discussion at this time, when houses in Judea and Samaria are sold at a much higher price than in the past. The economic discussion centering on housing prices necessitates an ideological discussion on building in Judea and Samaria. According to him, opinions on the matter should be exchanged among politicians and statesmen to lead to real change.
Ruthi Schwartz, CEO of General Regulation in the Planning Administration, also participated in the discussion. She told of the decisions that the government has made to encourage settlement in the Golan Heights, in the hope of shortening the regulation process and the hope that the next government would continue making decisions in the same spirit. She mentioned, among other things, the process that began today, in which a licensed architect can issue a building permit as part of this trend. The moderator, Eran Bar Tal, cooled the enthusiasm by noting that this step does not relate to Judea and Samaria.
Nadia Matar, one of the co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement, presented the main points of the research commissioned by the movement from economist Dr. Amatzia Samkai, who, together with a team of researchers, examined data relating to the ramifications of building in Judea and Samaria on the cost of housing in Gush Dan, and the data that she presented is clear and fascinating.
Dr. Samkai’s research shows that the cost of housing in Tel Aviv rose a hundred percent during the last decade because of the gap between supply and demand. Besides the importance of building in the Negev and the Galilee, the reality is that the Israeli public wants to live in the area between Hadera and Gedera, so “land is required and amazingly such land is available! It is already possible now to begin building in western Samaria, which provides a hundred square kilometers available for building, while Gush Dan is 52 square kilometers and with all of the additions, it comes to a hundred square kilometers. Development and marketing of lands on the scope of 25 thousand housing units per year would reduce the cost of housing in the area of the center by 35 to 45 percent”. Matar's talk was accompanied by a slide showing exactly where such building can take place in Samaria.
Yehudit Katsover concluded with the clear reminder throughout the world today, of the importance of the battle over territory and land. We must, she said, prepare for the absorption of 7 million Jews who are still in the diaspora. The territory of the Land of Israel is the future of the State of Israel and we cannot give up this future.