Hamas War

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Another Reason Why The Faux "Peace Negotiations" Endanger Israel

the turn-off to Ramat Shlomo
from Begin Highway
Last night I caught another very disturbing news report on Israeli television. There are now protests, complaints etc concerning the building of a new section of Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood.  From the description on tv, it seems that this new Jewish neighborhood is in the direction of Ramat Shlomo, which is in the former "no-man's land" 1948-1967.

On the news they kept saying that any building outside the "green line," even in land that was long ago annexed by Israel as part of our Capital City Jerusalem, endangers the "peace" sic negotiations.  It was clear that the news editors wanted us to accept that, G-d forbid, any land in the Jerusalem area not yet populated by Jews will be given to the Arabs. This is outrageous and shows a lack of recognition of Israeli sovereignty and legitimacy.

This extreme Left wing "peace at any price" policy not only endangers the State of Israel in terms of viability and security, it is also causing continued financial hardship to hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who can't afford to buy apartments and are wasting large percentages of their monthly income on rent.

One of the biggest financial problems in Israel is finding affordable housing.  We haven't had any quantity of public, affordable housing built for years.  This causes a terrible financial burden on those who've never bought and on growing families.

With the lifting of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's building freeze of a few years ago, things began looking up, at least in Judea and Samaria.  I've noticed a lot of housing starts in Ariel recently.


There's excellent public transportation from Ariel to the Petach Tikva/Tel Aviv area.  There is also a popular and growing university in Ariel, which attracts students, both Jews and Arabs, from all over the country. There's also bus service to Jerusalem and well maintained highways and roads to all parts of Israel.  The best and fastest Israeli highway, the first toll road in the country, has an exit/entrance not far from Ariel.

Eli's new "apartments"
Housing prices, like all economic indices (is that the plural of index?) is a result of supply and demand. Increase the supply to meet (and even surpass the demand for a while,) and your prices will drop.

Too much of the building going on in Israeli cities are luxury apartments which do not serve the needs of the local population.

More luxury housing being built in Jerusalem

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

RE: the luxury apartments going up in Jerusalem, the big question is: To whom do they (the builders, etc.) expect to sell them? How many Jews are that rich? Really? Considering the debt burden many of them carry, I doubt there are as many as will fill those apartments.

From where I live I can almost watch the building of those luxury apartments in the last picture. I live pretty close to the central bus station, which is near the new complex (probably a whole neighborhood in itself).

I know one Jewish family who could afford it; they are old enough that they will need a ground floor apartment, if they even like the surroundings there (I wouldn't, even if I had the money.).

CDG, Yerushalayim

Anonymous said...

CDG: Think these luxury apts. in Jerusalem are for people living chutz l'aretz with lots of money; and now the way the State is behaving, they would like more non-Jews in Israel than Jews and/or only wealthy Jews. Instead of bldgs. being built for the average & low-income Jewish citizen, we have these luxury buildings. Maybe we'll have miracles where all yehudim will be able to afford to live in luxury - when Moshiach comes. May it be NOW.

Batya said...

CDG, That's private enterprise, not the government. Private businesses always try to get the most they can. We need more public housing for which the government tells the contractor what the size and price limits are and there are good mortgage rates for those who don't own homes or live in very crowded conditions.