Without us noticing, an anti-settlement norm has taken root.
In the big cities, especially in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, there is a tremendous development momentum.
On the other hand, in the so-called "distant" spaces (what is already far away in this small country?), Settlement and development are drowsy.
Stop establishing new settlements, and a negative attitude has developed even towards the development of transportation, which is an important condition for the ability to move part of the growing population to cities that are not in the "center of the country".
The Minister of Transportation and the chairman of the Labor Party, Merav Michaeli, scoffed at the "complete concrete and cement" dressers, when she explained why she canceled the plan to connect Ashkelon and Jerusalem with a new road. Of peripheral cities like Ashkelon, or the sense of siege felt in the rural area of Israel, as testified in this section (27.10.2021) by the head of the Emek Hefer Regional Council, Galit Shaul?
Even mayors in the periphery, who suffer from policies like Michaeli's, are openly working against the establishment of "competing" localities in their areas.
They operate in the corridors of power in a vigorous anti-settlement lobby together with environmental organizations, and receive support from the finance officials, the ultra-Orthodox for the public coffers.
This is a fundamental change in a society that was once a distinctly settler society.
How did he start, and what are the ongoing reasons for abandoning what was recently considered a major task in Israeli society?
How did it happen that in areas vital to us, such as the Golan Heights, the Upper Galilee, the Jordan Valley and the Negev, settlement actually stopped, rural or urban?
The first factor was a crisis in the area once called "pioneering settlement."
This gradually declined, and therefore no popular settlement followed, as happened in the settlement in the country during its successful periods.
The result is shuffling of places like Katzrin, misery of places like Ma'ale Ephraim, and stepping in the place of the cities of the Galilee.
The state has also failed to settle the Arab population in modern cities in the Galilee instead of huge villages mistakenly called cities, and has failed to concentrate the Bedouin of the Negev in such cities, even though they are necessary conditions for improving their education, employment and standard of living.
Israel's local inaction has affected both Jews and Arab citizens of the country.
The second factor that adversely affected the attitude toward settlement was the cultivation of the negative attitude toward "settlement," that is, settlement in Judea and Samaria. In the distant past, an attack on settlement was taboo. Rosh HaAyin, Ariel, Eviatar and Ma'ale Ephraim are one settlement axis, as are Jerusalem, Ma'ale Adumim and a city that should be established in the area near Almog in the Jordan Valley.
The third impediment is the requirement to maintain open spaces, leading to the requirement to concentrate the population in existing localities and especially in cities.
These requirements are not unfounded.
It is worth considering them, but in a balanced way.
Sometimes the same people who opposed the establishment of new settlements also opposed the expansion of cities in the periphery and caused underdevelopment there.
And their opposition is automatic, with almost no discretion.
Why, for example, does the mayor of Arad, Nissan Ben Hamo, oppose settlement along the road leading to his city?
After all, the alternative is a scattered settlement of Bedouins there - an undesirable alternative for some reason, instead of concentrating them in modern cities alongside Jewish cities.
It is almost impossible to establish a settlement in the country, let alone new cities.
Almost all of the development focuses on the so-called "center of the country," which is not really in the geographical center of the country, as a quick glance at the map reveals.
It does not have to happen.
Vigorous government policy can change the direction of development.
The state should initiate the establishment of new cities and complementary localities near existing cities, some of which should develop into metropolitan areas in relatively empty spaces.
The conceptual separation between "settlement" and "settlement" must be stopped, and it is necessary to balance the preservation of open spaces with the urgent need to continue settlement in the country.