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Photo: Zoom 77
Hagai Segal
Photo: Zoom 77

Don’t blame the settlers

Op-ed: As opposed to social demagogue charges, settlement enterprise not a waste of money

There is no doubt about it, Israeli governments over the years invested huge sums of money in the settlements enterprise. However, they always sought the voter’s approval first.

 

In the overwhelming majority of elections here, the voters casted their ballots in favor of coalitions that revealed in advance their construction plans beyond the Green Line. Indeed, there was always a leftist minority that strongly objected to these plans, yet in a democracy it is customary to go by what the majority wants. And the people wanted settlements.

 

As opposed to all the social-demagogue chatter we are hearing, this was not a waste of money. After all, the 330,000 settlers have to live somewhere - If not in Beit El then in Carmiel.

 

Moreover, the settlement enterprise constitutes a peripheral area to a no lesser extent than the Galilee and Negev regions. Instead of crowding somewhere in downtown Tel Aviv, we built in Judea and Samaria, thereby killing two birds with one stone: It was both cheaper and more pioneering.

 

Had it not been for the consistent incitement against the settlement enterprise, we could have settled many more citizens over there using the same budgetary infrastructure. Indeed, it is still not too late to do that. An hour away from Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard, you can still find here and there a decent mobile home. Some $700 a month and it’s yours.

 

And while we are on this issue: The uprooting of some 8,000 settlers from Gush Katif cost the State of Israel about NIS 12 billion (roughly three and half billion dollars.) the uprooting of 100,000 settlers residing beyond the large settlement blocs would cost us some NIS 150 billion. The bankrupt America will not be partaking in this project, so this huge burden, in its entirely, will have to be paid for by us.

 

When that happens, it would not only be the middle class that raises a hue and cry; even our economic elite shall be screaming.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.12.11, 13:59
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