Likud leadership candidate MK Gideon Sa'ar on Thursday visited the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos in Jerusalem and spoke out against the construction freeze in the area.
Sa'ar explained that “this location has strategic significance. Construction here will damage the territorial continuity that the Palestinians are striving for and will serve as a barrier to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Therefore, there are also political pressures, mainly European ones, to prevent the construction for Jews here.”
“Givat Hamatos is part of a larger building freeze in Jerusalem and its surroundings, along with E1 and Atarot. All in all - more than 17,000 housing units are frozen,” continued Sa’ar.
The lack of construction for Jews at a significant scope, he added, provides a constant change in the demographic balance in Jerusalem to the detriment of the Jews.
"The future of Jerusalem will be determined by deeds, not by words. The construction freeze in the city must be stopped," Sa'ar stressed. “If we do not build, we cannot guarantee the future of the city and the Jewish majority in it for generations to come.”
“There is another meaning to the construction here. Many Jewish residents of Jerusalem, with an emphasis on young people, are leaving the city in the absence of a sufficient supply of housing that also affects the rise in housing prices in Jerusalem. And that harms the demographic balance in the city. The demographic balance in Jerusalem between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority in the past decade has changed negatively.”
"That's why it's crucial to defrost this freeze. These are the things I intend to promote and carry out, and that is why I arrived here today at Givat Hamatos," MK Sa'ar added.