Netanyahu vs. Israeli Lands: "Catastrophic National Consequences" | Israel Hayom

The Director General of the Prime Minister's Office, Yossi Shelly, will convene tomorrow (Monday) at the Prime Minister's Office for the first time the inter-ministerial team to formulate a map of national priority areas for housing. The discussion followed two stormy discussions in the government, today and last week, on the loss of the Jewish majority in the Galilee and the Negev.

Israel Hayom learned that at today's cabinet meeting, the prime minister and many ministers attacked the Israel Land Authority and blamed it for the policy, which Netanyahu called "catastrophic" and "crazy."

Defense Minister Yoav Galant was more blunt, saying that "the planning institutions are acting out of anti-Zionist considerations. The ILA speculates on the ground without Zionist consideration."

Israel Lands. Towards a change?, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

The storm developed following the proposal of the Minister of the Negev and Galilee, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, to define Zionism as a guiding value in government policy, a proposal that the legal counsel had reservations about.

Minister Amichai Shikli said, "The Galilee and the Negev are in a corpse state. At the beginning of the last decade, there were 500 Jewish children in kindergartens in the Misgav Regional Council. Today there are 200. It's an emergency."

Shikli and other ministers noted that "it is unacceptable that an Arab resident who enlists in the Border Police receives a 90 percent discount on the land, while his Jewish neighbor, who is also recruited to the Border Police, receives no discount. The problem is with the planning administration."

A settlement in the north. Gaps between Jews and Arabs?, Photo: Eyal Margolin/Ginny

Prime Minister Netanyahu was also upset by the situation. "These are crazy figures with catastrophic national consequences. I won't tolerate it. It doesn't make sense for land to be sold for 100,<> shekels in an Arab community and a million shekels in an adjacent Jewish community."

"Economic and real estate barrier"

Following this, Netanyahu strongly criticized the Israel Land Authority. Addressing Housing Minister Goldknopf, who is responsible for the ILA, Goldknopf said: "Long before you became Housing Minister I had terrible criticism of the ILA. They own 90% of the land and constitute an economic and real estate barrier. At the moment, the government does not set the policy (rather, the Israel Authority). We're going to change that. I don't want to schedule a meeting with them, but to guide policy. The discussion is how do I remove the authority from the ILA in order to stop the madness."

Last week as well, in a discussion on national priority areas, many in the government strongly criticized the planning institutions, accusing them of losing the state's grip on the Galilee and the Negev. Netanyahu said in the previous discussion that this is "a national issue that the prime minister must manage, with national aspects, and this is one of the most important decisions that this government has passed, if not the most important."

The ILA said in response: "The Authority is subordinate to the government and implements the policy and decisions of the Israel Land Council. The ILA periodically examines marketing policy in order to adapt to the changing reality."

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