Opinion | Response to Palestinian Targets: Atarot Construction Israel today

Bashar al-Masri's grandiose dreams of building tens of thousands of housing units in North Jerusalem are currently unlikely to materialize, for several reasons.

First, he has at his disposal a building permit from a year ago, for the construction of only 400 housing units on an area of ​​18.5 dunams on the border of Atarot and Beit Hanina.

Second, the larger plan, which is a vision and a program and has not yet been approved by anyone, speaks of the completion of Beit Hanina in Jerusalem and its increase from about 40,000 residents today to about 120,000 residents in the future.

This plan, which is also being rolled out in the Beit Hanina community administration, currently has no chance of passing the planning institutions in Jerusalem, neither in the city council nor in the district committee, where Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has much influence.

Having said that, however, it is worth worrying about this Palestinian vision, presented yesterday in the presence of the Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Hussein and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem Theophilus III, mainly because he encounters a great visionary void on the Israeli side, regarding North Jerusalem.

Moreover, the most significant construction plan for Jews in North Jerusalem - the construction plan in Atarot, about 10,000 housing units, has been frozen for political reasons for two decades by Netanyahu, by his predecessors, and now by Bennett.

Even the deposit phase is delayed

At the moment, the Atarot program is awaiting deposit, but even this phase has been delayed for many years and it is not clear why.

Jewish construction in Atarot is of strategic importance to Jerusalem.

Without it, there is a real danger that the "northern finger" of Jerusalem will be handed over to the Palestinians in the future.

These are openly striving for this.

There is nothing more right and just than the realization of construction in Atarot, a Jewish-owned territory that fell to Jordan during the War of Independence, was liberated by us in 1967, and has been waiting ever since for its sons, its saviors, to return to it.

Of course, construction in Atarot is also correct in light of the real housing crisis of the Jews in Jerusalem: 18,000 Jews leave the city every year, mainly due to the lack of housing.

This plan is also needed to balance the demographics of Jerusalem for the benefit of the Jews, and to re-increase the Jewish majority in the city, which has shrunk in recent decades.

Atarot is now the answer to the "Lana" vision of the Palestinian al-Masri family.

This is the opportunity for Bennett and Shaked and Elkin and Saar to prove that they are indeed ten percent more to the right than the previous government.