Opinion | Despite the insistence of the left wing in the government - the map of priorities will not change Israel today

Get a scoop: Residents of Judea and Samaria do not enjoy income tax rebates.

at all.

This has been the situation for almost two decades.

Contrary to the old stigma, the state also does not pay the settlers the mortgage and does not give them free houses.

Believe it or not, the residents of Judea and Samaria are ordinary mortals who actually pay out of pocket for their livelihood. And another fact from a year of stigmas. Settlement in Judea and Samaria was not supported by the Netanyahu governments more than other peripheral areas. No less and probably more than Judea and Samaria.

Government meeting.

Each office formulates an individual priority map, Photo: Emil Salman

Tax rebates, for example, are received in the Gaza Strip and in the north, and rightly so.

On the other hand, assumptions are not at all related to the map of national priority areas, although many tend to think so.

Because as you have already understood, politicians pounce on the map and produce a lot of noise, but a lot of confusion and lack of knowledge surround the issue of national priority areas.

What is?

Well, there is no single map of national priority areas.

The process works so that first of all the government formulates a general map and general indices.

Based on the general map, each government ministry formulates its own individual map, in which it has its own metrics for directing budgets that can be diverted.

But the priority map of tourism is different from the priority map of the Ministry of Housing, which is different from that of the Ministry of Defense, which is different from that of the Ministry of Education, and so on.

In addition, the indices are those that do not allow the benefits to be automatically applied to an entire area.

For example, the settlement of Omar in the Negev, and the settlement of Efrat in Gush Etzion, are not included in the priority map because their economic situation is excellent, and although the area around them is defined as a national priority.

Moreover, there are metrics required by law that politics cannot change.

For example, areas in which the IDF determines that there is a security danger are in any case included in some of the priority maps.

Saar and Bennett.

They will not allow the left to remove Judea and Samaria from the priority maps, Photo: Uri Cohen, Oren Ben Hakon

At the end of the process, the map does affect the degree of government assistance to the localities included in it.

For example, the state's participation in infrastructure development in new neighborhoods, the allocation of educational buildings, transportation preferences, facilitations for businesses and industrial areas.

This is the kind of tools that the final maps provide.

The current government was formed on the basis of the agreement that no changes will be made to controversial issues.

Judea and Samaria is currently on some of the priority maps, and the right and new hope will not allow Lapid, Michaeli or Horowitz to take them out either.

So until the current priority map expires in early March 2022, we will see a lot of headlines.

Changes in maps, not necessarily.