By the way, 50,000 persons, is actually only around 8,800 family-apartments.
Now, let’s look at what the NIF really accomplished in their quest for pluralism.
Instead of an all-Hareidi town, where they could be left alone to bother no one, there will be a “mixed” town with friction points throughout, just like in certain neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh – that the In Jerusalem delights in reporting on.
Thanks to the NIF, instead of an all-Chareidi frictionless town now (such as Beitar Ilit, Modiin Ilit, Elad), it will now take 5-10 years for the Hareidim to push out all the secular, all the while those secular residents complain about the Hareidim encroaching on their turf – turf that was originally earmarked for the rapidly growing Hareidi community that no one wants living among them.
And the same is being done to the Hareidim who are trying to build a town down in the Negev. They aren’t really welcome in the nearby towns, and the towns don’t want a Hareidi community built nearby there either, this time ostensibly for “green” reasons.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say you don’t want Hareidim in your community, but when they try to build their own towns and communities you block them from doing that too.
You can’t say you want Hareidim in the army, but complain that there are too many religious and (soon) Hareidi officers and combat soldiers.
And you can’t say you want all the Hareidim in the army except for “a few hundred geniuses”, when 35% of non-Hareidi Israelis, and a significantly larger percentage, when you only count the Gush Dan region, don’t do any service at all.
Israeli pluralism is a farce. It’s not tolerant and its not open-minded. It’s hypocritical. And it’s definitely anti-Hareidi.
I won’t be surprised if Yair Lapid rewrites his famous “Things We Couldn’t Say During the Disengagement” article a few years from now and writes,
“The Israelis merely felt that the Hareidim should be taught a lesson in humility and perhaps in democracy too. The Hareidim learned that their power is limited…
“It had nothing to do with the army, or work, or the economy, or any other explanation that was given. There was a totally different motivation…”
You only need to read the NIF quote and read about the protests over the past 2 years against Hareidim moving into Harish to understand what that motivation is.