Transforming the Galilee and the Negev and strengthening Jewish settlement across Israel requires a new, comprehensive planning vision. Urban planner and architect Yoram Ginzburg discusses what he sees as the tragedy of the Jewish people in their own land, the dangers of discrimination, and the way forward.
The need to strengthen Jewish settlement in the Galilee and Negev has recently returned to public debate, driven by demographic trends and growing Arab nationalism. Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock are preparing plans to extend northward and southward the settlement revolution they have advanced in Judea and Samaria. But implementing this vision, argues architect and urban planner Yoram Ginzburg, chairman of the Burning Bush Movement, requires a fundamental change in the thinking of Israel’s leadership and bureaucracy.
Ginzburg sees Israel’s current population distribution as a historical absurdity, comparable to the Pale of Settlement imposed on Jews in Eastern Europe for approximately 120 years, until February 1917. While earlier restrictions were imposed by foreign rulers, including the Ottoman and British authorities, he argues that today’s restrictions are the result of Israeli government policies.
“Five million people lived in the historical Pale of Settlement. It was a vast area, but it was the only place Jews were permitted to live,” he explains. “Today, Jews cannot live in Gaza, face severe restrictions in Judea and Samaria, and constitute only about 15 percent of the population in the Negev and Galilee. In practice, the area where we can live has become the coastal plain.”
Ginzburg rejects the distinction between historical coercion and today’s supposedly voluntary choices. He argues that government planning and land-allocation policies systematically disadvantage Jewish settlement. According to him, the Israel Land Authority restricts Jewish access to land and the expansion of existing communities, or sets prices beyond their reach.
He cites the example of the Arab village of Kafr Manda, where half a dunam can reportedly cost NIS 80,000–100,000, compared with NIS 1–1.5 million for comparable land in the Jewish community of Yodfat, before development.
He also criticizes planning policies that, in his view, create a divide between rural Arab communities and Jewish cities. Arab communities are permitted to expand through low-density construction across extensive areas, while Jewish communities are confined to denser, high-rise development. He argues that explanations based on cultural preferences or affirmative action conceal a destructive inequality.
Urban renewal further concentrates Jewish residents. “Jerusalem cannot expand south, north or east, so towers of 30 and 40 stories are being built,” he says. Approximately 70 percent of Israel’s population lives in the narrow strip between Nahariya and Ashkelon.
For Ginzburg, this represents a historical reversal: the Jewish kingdoms were centered in the mountains, while today, he argues, Jews are concentrated along the coast and Arabs occupy extensive areas of the highlands. Jewish communities are effectively confined to urban fortresses facing open territory in the Galilee, Judea and Samaria, and the Negev.
He recalls the Zionist Congress debate over the Uganda proposal: “We rejected Uganda because it was not the Land of Israel. Yet we settled primarily on the coastal plain while seemingly relinquishing the heartland that belongs to us—Judea and Samaria.”
He considers it particularly tragic that some coastal residents view Jewish communities and farms in Judea and Samaria as sources of conflict rather than as pioneers restoring Jewish presence in the homeland. “Until we ascend the mountain ridge and establish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, we have not truly come home,” he argues.
Ginzburg also criticizes the separation between Israel’s national planning framework and Judea and Samaria. Having worked with the Sovereignty Movement on National Outline Plan 100 (TAMA 100), he contrasts it with TAMA 35, which does not extend beyond the Green Line, leaving the heartland outside Israel’s long-term planning framework.
“Geographically, the territory from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River is one indivisible planning unit,” he says. TAMA 100 envisions shifting Israel’s development eastward, toward the mountain ridge. He points to agricultural farms promoted by Smotrich and Strock as modern equivalents of the early "Choma UMigdal" settlements: small outposts that can grow into communities and eventually connect to create a continuous territorial presence.
His vision divides the Land of Israel into 12 districts, each with one or two metropolitan centers of approximately one million residents, providing employment and services to surrounding communities.
Achieving this, he argues, requires encouraging mass Jewish immigration. He proposes accommodating at least eight million additional Jews from around the world in new, affordable metropolitan centers along the mountain ridge, stretching from Eilat to Kiryat Shmona. He also advocates encouraging Arab emigration from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as well as other parts of the country.
“Politicians such as Smotrich should openly declare this as their plan and promote reforms that offer affordable land to Jews willing to settle the frontier,” Ginzburg concludes. “Every discharged soldier should receive a free plot of land in Israel. Those who have given years of their lives to military service should know that they can build their future in the country, in the new development zones along the mountain ridge—from Eilat to Kiryat Shmona.”
This article was originally published in Sovereignty Journal, Issue No. 20 (October 2026). 📖 "Click here to read the full issue