Israel Matzav

Facts on the ground: Jewish growth rate in Judea and Samaria continues to outstrip the rest of the country

The Jewish growth rate in Judea and Samaria was 2.3% during the first six months of this year, and may reach 5% by the end of the year as families tend to move during the summer. The number of Jews in Judea and Samaria has now crossed the 300,000 mark, and together with parts of Jerusalem that were liberated during the 1967 Six Day War, there are now more than 600,000 Jews in those territories that the United States and other governments classify as 'settlers.'

Most of the growth has come in cities, such as Modi'in and Betar Illit, which generally are lumped with smaller towns and hilltop outposts as “settlements.” The figures, issued by the Civil Administration, do not include residents of several outposts.

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The move to Judea and Samaria probably would be higher, but American-imposed building restrictions have prevented people from building their own houses. Real estate agents have reported that prices for the remaining empty houses have soared as people race to move into the remaining supply of housing. [I guess no one expects Israel to be giving up land in Judea and Samaria anytime soon. CiJ]

More Jews also are moving into eastern Jerusalem, where the U.S. has concentrated efforts to impose a building freeze. Approximately 300 families, most of them with several children, are living in several neighborhoods, some of them where Jews owned homes nearly 100 years ago but were expelled by the British during Arab pogroms in the period of the British Mandate. Hundreds of other families were forced to leave the Old City when it fell during the War of Independence in 1948.

But here's the line that I like the best in this article.

National Union party chairman MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz responded to the Civil Administration statistics by calling on every Jewish family to "give birth to an additional child this year as a Zionist answer to the decrees of Barack Hussein Obama."

Heh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:24 AM