To Haaretz: Israel has the Right to Build in Yesha
To Haaretz: Israel has the Right to Build in Yesha

The Left in Israel is now claiming that when Israel announced a tender to build 277 units in Efrat, she was violating an agreement that she made with Pres Bush as part of the consideration for the Bush letter of ’04 in which he acknowledged that Israel could keep the settlement blocs in any peace agreement.

It claims that Israel promised four other things: not to expropriate Palestinian land for the benefit of the settlements, not to establish new settlements, to confine new settlement construction to within the settlements’ existing boundaries, and not to give financial incentives that would encourage people to move to the territories.

But wait, Wasn’t this the agreement that Obama disavowed as a binding agreement?  Thus any commitment Israel may have given as consideration is no longer binding.

Furthermore, Bush would not have asked for such an agreement from Israel if Israel already was bound not to do such things. It follows than that Israel had every such right before making the agreement and now that the agreement is disavowed, Israel is free to do what it did previously.

On an aside, this tender is pursuant to the “Mechir Lamishtaken” program, under which the government sells the land to contractors for less than its full market value. The quid pro quo for this discount is that it will be passed on to the consumer by way of lower prices.  This is otherwise known as subsidized housing. It is done all over Israel and all over the world.

The Left by arguing against subsidies , says they are OK and even good, west of the ’67 line but not east of it. I disagree, subsidized housing is good everywhere..