"With the melting away of [Prime Minister Olmert's] convergence plan [to unilaterally withdraw from most of Yesha]," Lieberman said Sunday, "we have decided to change direction and go towards Israeli-izing the Shomron region. The Sebastia conception brought us this far, but now it's time for a new language, a different type of building."
Sebastia is the area where the Yesha settlement enterprise started over three decades ago when pioneers "coerced" the Rabin government to permit settlement simply by refusing to leave.
"There is no reason why the communities should remain so small," he later explained to Arutz-7. "Why is Alon Shvut still only a few hundred families after so many years? And the same with Elon Moreh, Yakir, Peduel and others. It is time to stop being so selective, and to open the gates and grow."
Jewish population growth in Judea and Samaria has long been far higher than the rest of the country. The Central Bureau of Statistics confirms that Yesha's average annual growth rate of 5.5% is some three times higher than the rest of Israel. Lieberman wants even more, however.
Reminded that the government is not as forthcoming in permitting new construction as it once was, Lieberman said, "There are plenty of places where it is possible to build, but they're not building. If there were more Ariels and Maaleh Adumims, our situation would be better."
Lieberman told Arutz-7 that he plans to be in touch in the very near future with other Yesha regional leaders, such as Pinchas Wallerstein of Binyamin and Tzviki Bar-Chai of Har Hevron, about this issue.
Organic Eggs in Itamar
Lieberman took part in a gathering in the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel aimed at developing strategy for the future development of Samaria. "The destruction of Gush Katif," he said, "has taught us that we must speak in a new language; we must leave the ghetto and replace it with a fabric of life that includes everyone - and this is dependent on the communities themselves. They must get out and sell themselves. The community of Itamar, for instance, should not be known only for its ideology, but also for its organic eggs and similar products."
Lieberman noted that the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel is itself an element that blurs the Green Line border between Yesha and the rest of Israel. "The fact that there are 9,000 students studying here and no one asks them their political opinions is indicative," he said.
Another area that is appropriate to this kind of thinking, Lieberman said, "is the Barkan industrial zone, just 17 kilometers east of Petach Tikvah." This past Thursday and Friday, many thousands of people attended a fair at Barkan, just west of Ariel, purchasing a wide range of goods at bargain prices. "We want to develop this area," Lieberman explained, "and market it as the place to shop in the region. We have to blur the lines of this area as just a politically-charged place."
Barkan is the country's second largest industrial zone, with more than 100 businesses located on a 350-acre compound. It employs 5,500 people, a third of whom are local Arabs.
Lieberman said that three areas of the Shomron are being targeted for specific types of development: "The northern Shomron will be billed as a tourist site - with beautiful forests and more; people barely even realize that it's just off the main highway to the Galilee. The Mountain Ridge communities such as Itamar and Yitzhar will become centers of organic agriculture and holism, and in the central Shomron, such as Ariel, we will have academia, commerce and tourism."
Numbers: Views, Longevity and Babies
Arutz-7's Ruti Avraham reports that a recent poll by Brain Base, presented at the gathering, shows that 79% of the Yesha public has "public-minded" opinions, as opposed to "right-wing extremist" ones.
Prof. Dan Meyerstein, President of Ariel College, said that life-expectancy in Yesha is higher than anywhere else in Israel - 80.6 years. He further said that fertility in Yesha is "crazily higher than the rest of Israel" - 4.4 children, as opposed to the national average of 2.8. In addition, the infant mortality rate is 4.1 in Yesha, as opposed to 5.5 elsewhere in Israel - "and for this I have no explanation," Meyerstein said.
Sebastia is the area where the Yesha settlement enterprise started over three decades ago when pioneers "coerced" the Rabin government to permit settlement simply by refusing to leave.
"There is no reason why the communities should remain so small," he later explained to Arutz-7. "Why is Alon Shvut still only a few hundred families after so many years? And the same with Elon Moreh, Yakir, Peduel and others. It is time to stop being so selective, and to open the gates and grow."
Jewish population growth in Judea and Samaria has long been far higher than the rest of the country. The Central Bureau of Statistics confirms that Yesha's average annual growth rate of 5.5% is some three times higher than the rest of Israel. Lieberman wants even more, however.
Reminded that the government is not as forthcoming in permitting new construction as it once was, Lieberman said, "There are plenty of places where it is possible to build, but they're not building. If there were more Ariels and Maaleh Adumims, our situation would be better."
Lieberman told Arutz-7 that he plans to be in touch in the very near future with other Yesha regional leaders, such as Pinchas Wallerstein of Binyamin and Tzviki Bar-Chai of Har Hevron, about this issue.
Organic Eggs in Itamar
Lieberman took part in a gathering in the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel aimed at developing strategy for the future development of Samaria. "The destruction of Gush Katif," he said, "has taught us that we must speak in a new language; we must leave the ghetto and replace it with a fabric of life that includes everyone - and this is dependent on the communities themselves. They must get out and sell themselves. The community of Itamar, for instance, should not be known only for its ideology, but also for its organic eggs and similar products."
Lieberman noted that the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel is itself an element that blurs the Green Line border between Yesha and the rest of Israel. "The fact that there are 9,000 students studying here and no one asks them their political opinions is indicative," he said.
Another area that is appropriate to this kind of thinking, Lieberman said, "is the Barkan industrial zone, just 17 kilometers east of Petach Tikvah." This past Thursday and Friday, many thousands of people attended a fair at Barkan, just west of Ariel, purchasing a wide range of goods at bargain prices. "We want to develop this area," Lieberman explained, "and market it as the place to shop in the region. We have to blur the lines of this area as just a politically-charged place."
Barkan is the country's second largest industrial zone, with more than 100 businesses located on a 350-acre compound. It employs 5,500 people, a third of whom are local Arabs.
Lieberman said that three areas of the Shomron are being targeted for specific types of development: "The northern Shomron will be billed as a tourist site - with beautiful forests and more; people barely even realize that it's just off the main highway to the Galilee. The Mountain Ridge communities such as Itamar and Yitzhar will become centers of organic agriculture and holism, and in the central Shomron, such as Ariel, we will have academia, commerce and tourism."
Numbers: Views, Longevity and Babies
Arutz-7's Ruti Avraham reports that a recent poll by Brain Base, presented at the gathering, shows that 79% of the Yesha public has "public-minded" opinions, as opposed to "right-wing extremist" ones.
Prof. Dan Meyerstein, President of Ariel College, said that life-expectancy in Yesha is higher than anywhere else in Israel - 80.6 years. He further said that fertility in Yesha is "crazily higher than the rest of Israel" - 4.4 children, as opposed to the national average of 2.8. In addition, the infant mortality rate is 4.1 in Yesha, as opposed to 5.5 elsewhere in Israel - "and for this I have no explanation," Meyerstein said.