The town of Mevo’ot Yericho in the Jordan Valley was approved in a special government decision in September of 2019, during the Netanyahu government, and its master plan received most of the approvals required to complete the normalization process, already during the previous government.
Residents of the town have been waiting over a year now to receive the latest approval from the Supreme Planning Council of the Civil Administration, which will make it possible to complete the normalization of the town and connect it with full infrastructure and residential development.
This past Friday, when the agenda for the meeting of the Supreme Planning Council which is scheduled to take place this Thursday was made public, it became clear to the residents that the political echelon removed, at the last minute, the plan for Mevo’ot Yericho from the committee's agenda, thus effectively blocking the completion of the process.
Residents of the community blasted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, saying, "The town of Mevo’ot Yericho was approved for good during Netanyahu's term, and if there was any political pressure [to prevent the approval], he had already absorbed it, so claims of political pressure surrounding the final approval of the master plan - a completely technical approval - are an excuse at best, and a complete lack of understanding of settlement approval procedures at worst."
"It is inconceivable that 400 residents will continue to live without normalization just because of the over-hesitation and negligence of the political echelon. We demand that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense urgently correct this injustice and immediately bring back the town’s plan to the agenda of the Supreme Planning Council. We also expect more from Ministers [Gideon] Sa’ar, [Yoaz] Hendel, [Ayelet] Shaked, [Ze’ev] Elkin and Matan Kahana who visited the town not long ago, and pledged to promote the town now with the Prime Minister and make sure he corrects this shameful decision," they added.
The town has also contacted MK Nir Orbach (Yamina), demanding that he ensure that the town’s plan is returned to the committee's agenda. According to the residents, to this moment, no response to the query has been received by MK Orbach.