Construction in Samaria
Construction in SamariaArutz Sheva: Flash 90

Nationalist MKs and a demographer have two quick solutions to the housing problem: Move north, south and to Judea and Samaria – anywhere but Tel Aviv.

“Tell the hippies they won’t get one apartment in metropolitan Tel Aviv," Prof. Arnon Sofer told Arutz Sheva. “If they want respectable housing, they should move to Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Nazareth Illit [in the Galilee],” he added.

Prof. Sofer advised young people “to move to the outskirts and pressure all of the billionaires, who get rich on their backs, they have to move their factories there, also.” He said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu provided housing solutions to the youth but that the “’hippies’ have to give up their coffee houses in Tel Aviv.”

Housing in areas outside of metropolitan Tel Aviv, which spreads from Hadera in the north to Ashdod in the south, is much cheaper in cities and towns farther away.

Knesset Members of the National Union party, headed by Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz, wrote Prime Minister Netanyahu that his solutions are good but not enough to satisfy “a frustrated public than needs immediate answers.”

The MKs said that “part of the housing shortage is due to the building freeze that was imposed last year on large areas of Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria. The freeze officially has been lifted, but facts on the ground  show that it still is in effect due to the absence of construction approval by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is the ultimate authority in Judea and Samaria because it is legally under military rule.

The letter to the Prime Minister stated, “We are aware that part of the protest movement and tent city demonstrators are led by the left-wing, but they have a genuine problem. If we do not receive appropriate answers, we will join the struggle and perhaps widen the public image of the protests.”