On Monday we told you, based on a story that was pushed by the Prime Minister’s Office, that the Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council in Judea and Samaria is about to approve a large number of construction permits, 3,800 housing units altogether (Israel Issues Permits for Close to 4,000 Housing Starts in Settlement Blocs, Isolated Settlements, Hebron). Boy, are our faces red. Turns out, based on the actual agenda of the Supreme Planning Council, published Tuesday, only 600 construction permits are in discussion for the time being. That’s 0.16 of the promised amount.
According to a Wednesday report in Ha’aretz, the council, which will convene early next week, will approve the construction of 300 housing units in Beit El – those were promised by Prime Minister Netanyahu back in June 2012, as part of a deal to evacuate the Givat Ulpana houses because of a Supreme Court decree.
In the five years since that shameful eviction, the alternative housing plan has received all the necessary approvals, and the housing units have already been marketed to contractors.
Another 86 housing units will be approved for the settlement of Kochav Yaakov, intended for the September 2012 evacuees from the Migron outpost of Migron in Mateh Binyamin.
Also to be approved next week are 146 housing units in Nokdim, south of Bethlehem, population 2,052, including one significant local resident – Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. It’s good to be the king…
Psagot, located north of Jerusalem, near Ramallah, al-Bireh, and Kokhav Ya’akov, is slated to get permits for nine housing units; and the Jewish community of Hebron, living on land initially purchased by our grandfather Abraham for his late wife Sara (and not the other one) will actually receive its promised permits for 30 housing units.
According to Ha’aretz, the rest of the 3,200 permits, give or take a couple hundred, will be upgraded one level on the bureaucratic scale – where they could be killed overnight by either the PM or the DM.
Head of the Shomron Regional Council Yossi Dagan and Habayit Hayehudi MK Bezalel Smotrich – both key members of the settlements lobby – have already attacked Netanyahu for what they dubbed his media spin. This did not seem to deter anyone inside the Netanyahu bubble: a senior civil service official told Ha’aretz that as many as 12,000 housing units—in various stages of planning and construction—are yet to be approved in 2017.
Also, for every 1,000 such units, you get a bridge connecting Manhattan to one of the outer boroughs.