Yesha Council members met last night with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer in his Tel Aviv office. They requested immediate funding for defense needs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and the approval of new construction in the communities. Ben-Eliezer said he would consider the request, but noted that he does not plan to allow widespread building in Yesha. Housing starts in Yesha during the first six months of this year are down drastically; there were only 832 of them, compared with 4,499 for all of the year 2000. (The Har Homa neighborhood in Jerusalem, however, appears to be an exception. Although only 55 apartments were sold there during the first half of 2001, that pace quintupled itself during the next four months with the sale of 178 from July to October. A total of 870 apartments have been sold in Har Homa.)
Hundreds of northern Shomron residents from Mevo Dotan and Hermesh demonstrated against their lack of security this morning. They said that this was the first time they have come out to protest. Their main gripe: the bypass road around the hostile PA villages of Baka el-Sharkiye and Yaabed were begun three years ago, but have not been completed. Mevo Dotan resident Rachel Shelef, widow of Tzvika, said,
\"All we want is to live. My husband was murdered on the road to our town five months ago, then Hadas Abutbul, a mother of four, was killed ten days ago; how long will this go on? We deserve protection just like citizens in the rest of the country. We ask for nothing more than appropriate defense measures.\" Many residents have moved out of the area, which those who remain say could have been avoided had the security situation not been so unsafe. Public Security Minister Uzi Landau and several Knesset Members stopped by to offer encouragement.
Yesha Council head Benny Kashriel, a participant in the protest, told Arutz-7, \"We didn\'t receive great satisfaction in our meeting last night with Ben-Eliezer. He gave 50 million shekels for bypass roads, which is only a drop in the bucket. And in the Kiryat Arba area [south of Gush Etzion, near Hevron], the Aroub bypass road is still not approved - this is absolutely scandalous, as they are sacrificing human lives just because of the fear that the Arabs may protest the expropriation of lands for the road. Life has apparently become cheap. We will have to go directly to the Prime Minister... We\'re willing to guard the front, but not to become the country\'s cannon fodder.\"
Goods made in Yesha are safe from European Union tariffs - but only for now. The EU leaders meeting in Brussels last night called off their intention to impose a new tariff on the import of goods made in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza into Europe. Following an Israeli request, the EU decided that for now it would only warn European importers that a tariff is liable to soon be imposed on goods from Yesha. Belgium is behind the tariff initiative, and Yesha Council head Benny Kashriel says that a large lobby of Christian and other groups is threatening to boycott all Belgian products if in fact the status of Yesha products is downgraded. \"We are talking about dozens of factories and thousands of workers on both sides of the Green Line,\" he said, \"and I hope therefore that the government will help us in this campaign.\"
Hundreds of northern Shomron residents from Mevo Dotan and Hermesh demonstrated against their lack of security this morning. They said that this was the first time they have come out to protest. Their main gripe: the bypass road around the hostile PA villages of Baka el-Sharkiye and Yaabed were begun three years ago, but have not been completed. Mevo Dotan resident Rachel Shelef, widow of Tzvika, said,
\"All we want is to live. My husband was murdered on the road to our town five months ago, then Hadas Abutbul, a mother of four, was killed ten days ago; how long will this go on? We deserve protection just like citizens in the rest of the country. We ask for nothing more than appropriate defense measures.\" Many residents have moved out of the area, which those who remain say could have been avoided had the security situation not been so unsafe. Public Security Minister Uzi Landau and several Knesset Members stopped by to offer encouragement.
Yesha Council head Benny Kashriel, a participant in the protest, told Arutz-7, \"We didn\'t receive great satisfaction in our meeting last night with Ben-Eliezer. He gave 50 million shekels for bypass roads, which is only a drop in the bucket. And in the Kiryat Arba area [south of Gush Etzion, near Hevron], the Aroub bypass road is still not approved - this is absolutely scandalous, as they are sacrificing human lives just because of the fear that the Arabs may protest the expropriation of lands for the road. Life has apparently become cheap. We will have to go directly to the Prime Minister... We\'re willing to guard the front, but not to become the country\'s cannon fodder.\"
Goods made in Yesha are safe from European Union tariffs - but only for now. The EU leaders meeting in Brussels last night called off their intention to impose a new tariff on the import of goods made in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza into Europe. Following an Israeli request, the EU decided that for now it would only warn European importers that a tariff is liable to soon be imposed on goods from Yesha. Belgium is behind the tariff initiative, and Yesha Council head Benny Kashriel says that a large lobby of Christian and other groups is threatening to boycott all Belgian products if in fact the status of Yesha products is downgraded. \"We are talking about dozens of factories and thousands of workers on both sides of the Green Line,\" he said, \"and I hope therefore that the government will help us in this campaign.\"