Seven years after the Israeli disengagement from Gush Katif, the settlement enterprise is still as strong as ever, MK Ya’akov “Ketzaleh” Katz (National Union) said on Tuesday.
Katz told Arutz Sheva that the latest population data from Judea and Samaria is proof that Land of Israel activists have won.
“Seven years after the disengagement, when 10,000 Jews were expelled from 28 communities in Gaza, today we have over 700,000 Jews living beyond the Green Line – in east Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and in the Golan Heights,” said Katz.
“This means that over 14% of the Jewish population in Israel today lives beyond the Green Line,” he noted, adding that a recently conducted poll found that the population grows by six percent every year.
“In four to five years we will have over one million people, in ten years we’ll have 1.3 million and in 20 years we’ll have two million Jews living beyond the Green Line,” said Katz, adding, “We want to thank all the Jewish people who made aliyah and who live in Israel today for standing behind us for so many years.”
Katz quoted former Education Minister and the former chairman of the leftist Meretz party, Yossi Sarid, who wrote in the Haaretz newspaper that the population growth means that Judea and Samaria means will inevitably remain in Jewish hands.
“It’s good news that we see that the people who live in Judea and Samaria are the backbone of Israeli society and we have to be proud of that,” he said.