The Samaria Regional Council, which represents Israelis in Samaria, has expressed disappointment with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's gesture to the town of Itamar. Weeks after the massacre of five members of a local family at the hands of PA terrorists, Netanyahu has promised to authorize part of a city plan for Itamar, allowing for the construction of school buildings, including a permanent home for the yeshiva in which Rabbi Udi Fogel was a teacher.
The promise was made in a conversation with MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), who met with Netanyahu this week.
The rest of the city plan for Itamar will not be authorized, such that any new residential structures would continue to face “illegal” status.
The gesture is nothing more than a repetition of promises Netanyahu has made in the past, said council head Gershon Mesika. “This is a mockery, it's approaching fraud. It's recycling a small portion of the building plan, that relates to just some of the educational facilities in the town,” Mesika explained.
Mesika has spent the past several days in Knesset, pushing the authorization of the town plan for all of Itamar. Forty-five MKs from both the coalition and opposition, including several from the left-leaning Kadima party, have expressed support for its authorization, he said.
Mesika described the current situation. “The Defense Minister refuses to sign the town plan for purely political reasons, then prevents the construction of homes, the establishment of effective security and healthy town development, arguing that the town plan has not been signed... Residents of the town, which was established with the government's agreement, are sentenced to a life of deprivation due only to the lack of an authorized town plan.”
The Samaria Council, backed by many MKs, is also demanding that the government immediately provide funding for Itamar's security. The goal is “to put an end to the intolerable situation in which legalism and bureaucracy lead to unbearable loss of life, and in which the residents are forced to fund the high cost of their own defense.”