The Knesset Finance Committee is considering restoring national-priority status to Yesha… New outpost built near old outpost near Shilo… Calls for more children...
The Knesset Finance Committee held a key session Monday morning in preparation for the second reading of the budget bill for 2009-10. Among the central issues under consideration was the restoration of the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria to top national-priority status.
Judea and Samaria was accorded this status from the early 1980’s until the Rabin government, reflecting new governmental hostility to the settlement enterprise, withdrew it in the mid 90’s.
Areas with top national-priority status, such as development towns in the periphery, receive various benefits, such as income tax reductions, grants for new apartment purchases, and more. The goal, of course, is to encourage citizens to move to these regions and thus strengthen them.
MKs actively supporting the change are coalition whip Zev Elkin and Finance Committee coalition whip Tzion Pinian, both of the Likud.
Shomron Regional Council head Gershon Mesika, who participated in the Knesset session, told Israel National News afterwards that the majority of the Finance Committee appears to support the change, and that the chances of its passage are good. The committee is voting on a series of amendments in anticipation of the budget bill, which is scheduled to be passed by the Knesset in the coming weeks.
“Yesha is part of the State of Israel,” MK Pinian said. “Its residents are good for the army and for industry, but not to receive a necessary national-priority status? We cannot agree to this.”
More Children for Yesha
In other Yesha news, MK Yaakov Katz, head of the National Union party, issued a call from the Knesset plenum to families in Judea and Samaria “to bring more children into the world. I call on every family that can to have another child this year.” Katz noted that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in favor of a “demilitarized Palestinian state” will not come to fruition, “because we are now 650,000 people in Yesha – including the neighborhoods of Jerusalem, which Obama considers settlements and outposts, and which the Arabs demand that we leave – and we are growing at a 6% annual rate. Figure out yourselves what this means for four years from now, and for eight, and for 12…”
Katz did not overlook that new apartments and homes will be needed to house the burgeoning population: “We need apartments. Netanyahu is not building – and this is true not only in Yesha, but everywhere else in the country. He is busy with his political survival, but we are building with construction and having children. I call upon the regional council heads to allow all requests for extra floors and additions to homes.”
A New Outpost
In yet more Yesha news, another outpost neighborhood was built in the Shomron on Sunday. Located on Hilltop 9 of the town of Eli near Shilo, it now boasts a stone house and a wood house.
Avraham Eisner, a member of the new neighborhood’s core group, said, “We want to send a message that we love this land, we want this land, and we don’t suffice with the existing hilltops and communities.” Another member said, “When we look to the southeast, we were very moved and excited to see the ongoing development in Maoz Esther near Kokhav HaShachar [an outpost destroyed several times by Border Guard forces and rebuilt each time – ed.].”