Veteran Yesha (Judea and Samaria) journalist Haggai Segal says the best response to Netanyahu’s about-face is the tried-and-true growth-spurt method: Time to move to Yesha!

Segal, a founder of Arutz-7’s news department and a regular on the Knesset TV Channel, writes in the Makor Rishon newspaper that Netanyahu’s recent positions might easily be a jumping-off point for those long held by the Israeli left. For instance, Netanyahu said in his speech at Bar Ilan University that “Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, will remain united forever” – but he pointedly did not say “under Israeli sovereignty.”

Nor does Netanyahu’s call for “construction for natural growth” have to mean “new homes,” Segal noted; “it could mean nothing more than a new grocery store, medical clinic, or even a new nursery.” A recent IsraelNationalNews report similarly noted that in his speech on June 14, Netanyahu did not mention the need to guarantee settlement construction, and did not mention anything having to do with Israel’s retention of settlements or settlement blocs.

Even a PA State – So What Can Be Done?

Netanyahu now agrees to a Palestinian state – even if demilitarized and with other conditions – which is something he refused to do only a few weeks earlier. “Just three months ago,” Segal wrote, “Netanyahu refused to provide the goods to Tzipi Livni [when she demanded his consent to two-states as a condition for her joining the government – ed.], yet now he did. Obama has broken down his resistance. We can therefore expect that in another three months, we will hear an important speech by Bibi in Be’er Sheva University, followed by the Haifa University speech, until we ultimately end up with his Umm El-Fahm speech.”

Since threats to topple him are not serious at this stage, and “no one has the strength to go out to demonstrations, what can be done?” Segal asks.

Move to Yesha!

His answer: “Just the old and somewhat boring option of ‘another dunam [quarter-acre] and another caravan.’ That’s the name of the game now. America has declared war on Jewish construction in the territories, because it knows that the Jewish settlement enterprise is very close to the point of no return. We must therefore invest most of our energies in exactly that – not in little outposts, and not in displays of hatred for Netanyahu, but in quiet and quick growth.”

“As usual, this challenge will fall on the shoulders of the nationalist camp volunteers. If someone in Raanana [or the U.S. – ed.] wants to know what he can do now to save Israel from a Palestinian state, the answer is to move to Judea and Samaria. It won’t be easy, because Bibi and Barak won’t be giving out wholesale construction permits, but in almost every veteran town there are still permits left over… Just a little more effort, and a few more percentage points of natural or not so natural growth, and the uprooting of Jewish towns from Yesha will drop off the agenda.”

“As Arik Sharon once said, [in 1998, as a minister in Netanyahu’s first government -ed.], ‘Let everyone get a move on there! Run and grab more hilltops, expand the towns. Whatever is taken, will remain in our hands, and whatever is not taken, will go to them.’”