Israelis thumb their noses at US and EU: Housing prices in 'settlements' skyrocket
For those who are new or otherwise wondering why I put 'settlements' in scare quotes in the title to this post, it's because I hate the term. To me at least, it gives an impression of being something temporary, and I cannot think of any place populated by Jews in Israel as being a temporary home. Temporary homes for Jews only exist in the diaspora where we are supposed to pine for our imminent return to the land of Israel, and not in Israel itself. Surely as we sit a few days before Tisha b'Av, the fast that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples, we must understand that our forefathers were not sitting around waiting for their homes to be destroyed, even if they knew through the prophets that it was going to happen. Enough for my soapbox.
Israelis are becoming more secure that in fact the land of Israel - all of Israel - will remain ours. As a result, Jews are snapping up homes in Judea and Samaria as fast as they can be built, and prices are skyrocketing. The picture above is a partial view of Givat Zev, which is right outside Jerusalem, and which has been growing by leaps and bounds, filling more and more of the land that has been considered part of that town before the 1993 Oslo Accords. The picture was taken in April of this year.
But what's more impressive, as you will see in this article, is that Kfar Tapuach, which is not part of a 'settlement bloc' like Givat Zev, has also seen its home prices rising.
The
first time Michal Ronen traveled to her rental apartment in this Jewish
settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, a firebomb struck
her bus.
“I was so hysterical,” she said. “I thought that happens every time.”
Now Ms. Ronen and her husband are looking to buy a home in Kfar Tapuach.
The
eagerness of Israelis to own a home on disputed land is an increasingly
important political and financial barrier to a comprehensive
Israeli-Palestinian peace based on two neighboring states, critics of
settlement expansion say.
Israel
has said that settlements aren’t an impediment to a two-state solution
because many of them could be exchanged for Israeli territory in a
future deal.
Prices
are rising faster in many Jewish settlements than in major cities such
as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv because of strong demand from Israeli home
buyers. Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu’s government is increasing the
incentives for settlers, despite objections from the U.S. and other
world powers to expanding the settlements.
Israel
would almost certainly have to compensate settlers for moving from any
land included in a future Palestinian state, according to researchers at
the Tel Aviv-based Macro Center for Political Economics. That would
amount to billions of dollars, depending on the number of settlers who
had to relocate, the center estimated.
Indeed. I don't trust 'Peace Now' for anything, so take this with a grain of salt, but look at this graphic.
It should be noted that all of the 'West Bank settlements' noted above are in 'settlement blocs,' areas that Israel says it would keep in any conceivable 'peace settlement' with the 'Palestinians.' The United States committed, during the Bush administration, that Israel would in fact be allowed to keep the 'settlement blocs,' a promise that was reneged upon by the self-proclaimed 'most pro-Israel administration evah.' Congress backed the Bush commitment.
While home prices have risen because people want to move to Judea and Samaria because it appears safe to do so, that 'safety' theoretically ought to exist only in the 'settlement blocs.' None of that explains the meteoric rise in prices in Kfar Tapuach:
In Kfar Tapuach, where Ms. Ronen lives, the price of land has more than
tripled in the past five years, according to data from Israel-based
property website Madlan.
...
Residents
of Kfar Tapuach, a settlement of roughly 200 families near the
Palestinian city of Nablus, said house prices have benefited from the
growth of a university in the nearby settlement of Ariel.
Ms.
Ronen said she and her husband, Yuval, moved to the settlement because
Mr. Ronen studies engineering at the university. They live there with
their three children. “We now really want to buy a house,” she said,
adding that they say it has to be now because prices are “going up
crazy.”
Well yeah, but tripled? Ariel has had the university for many years (although it got university status officially in 2012). And Israel is not like the US where you need a Bachelor's degree to be a plumber.
Yes, some of the rise is explained by straight supply and demand calculations: Under pressure from the self-proclaimed 'most pro-Israel administration evah' Israel has underbuilt even in the 'settlement blocs.' But if people felt they needed to worry constantly about being expelled from Judea and Samaria for a 'Palestinian state,' there would be no demand.
Bottom line: The rise in price is best explained by the fact that Israelis feel secure that their land will not be turned over to the 'Palestinians.' And that's good for everyone. Actions should have consequences.
Spain refused to allow Ariel University students to take part in a
competition to design "green" environmentally-friendly buildings, which
was meant to be open to students from all universities worldwide.
Ariel University students reached the finals of the competition with their design, according to Yedioth Aharonoth.
Their design, entitled "Abraham's Tent," garnered great international
interest, but the boycott movement began working overtime to have the
students banned from the competition for the simple fact that they study
in Samaria.
Eventually the anti-Israel activists succeeded, and even though the
Israeli students had arrived in Spain in order to take part in the
finals, they were informed by the Spanish construction ministry that
funded the competition that they were being banned.
The University responded by petitioning the decision via an attorney
in Spain, suing the Spanish government for compensation and demanding
that the students be allowed to return to the competition.
The Spanish construction ministry reportedly tried to fight the
petition, but after realizing they were going to lose embarrassingly,
they decided to admit that they had discriminated against the students
and the university and offered to pay 430,000 shekels in compensation.
That amount was recently transferred to the university.
Ariel University student carjacked by Arab hitchiker
A student from Ariel University made the mistake of giving a ride to an Arab of Friday afternoon, and found himself standing outside a Jewish town in Samaria without the car. The student was physically unharmed.
Students from Ariel University often arrange rides to and from their
classes, as many students travel for hours back and forth to the Samaria
university.
Alternatively, students with vehicles often pick up fellow students -
and hitchhikers - to offer them rides to beat Samaria's
oft-dysfunctional bus system.
On Friday, the student picked up a hitchhiker as usual and headed on Route 60, toward the Binyamin area. The
hitchhiker then attacked the student and robbed him, hijacking his car
outside of the Samaria community of Peduel. The student was left outside
the community.
The car thief, apparently Arab, returned to the Binyamin region and
entered a Palestinian Arab village. The student is unharmed; police and
military forces are searching the area in an attempt to locate the
vehicle.
Never give rides to Arabs.... Even 'university students.' This guy is lucky he's alive.
Congressmen blast Obama for excluding Ariel students as students protest outside US consulate
Four American congressmen (there should have been 400 and I should have had to write 'representatives' rather than 'congressmen') have sent a letter to President Hussein Obama blasting his decisions not to speak to Israel's Knesset, and to exclude students from Ariel University from his Thursday night speech to students. In the meantime, students from Ariel are protesting outside the US consulate in Jerusalem.
The letter, penned by
Representative Bill Johnson (ROhio), also took issue with Obama’s decision not
to address the Knesset during this week’s visit to Israel, as his predecessors
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did when they visited the country during their
tenures in the White House.
It was also signed by Republican
representatives Jim Jordan and Brad Wenstrup of Ohio and John Fleming of
Louisiana.
“We believe you understand the importance of addressing a
nation’s parliament as you have taken the time to address members of parliament
in the United Kingdom, Australia and Ghana,” said the letter.
It noted
that such an address is a “customary and symbolic gesture that celebrates our
shared democratic ideas and the special relationship between Israel and the
US.”
The letter said that the congressmen understood that Obama had
chosen instead to address students, a move that it said was “commendable and
encouraged.”
However, the congressmen said, “we are disappointed to learn
that students from the University of Ariel, located in the West Bank town of
Ariel, did not receive an invitation to hear you speak. Especially since the
University of Ariel is the first beyond the Green Line, and is officially and
legally recognized by the Government of Israel.”
...
Levy and dozens of Ariel University students
held a vigil outside the US consulate in Jerusalem on Tuesday afternoon to
protest their exclusion from Thursday’s speech.
Participants held
life-size silhouettes marked with a red X to represent their exclusion from
Obama’s visit.
As the student union launched a facebook campaign entitled
“Yes we can? No we can’t! We will not let Obama discriminate against us: A
student in Ariel is a student in Israel” earlier this week, students from other
universities across the country have expressed their support.
Let's go to the videotape.
By the way, that logo at the top of this post is the official logo of Obama's visit and is plastered all over the highways here.
When I made aliya in 1991, Nachman Shai had one of the most recognized voices in the country. Shai, who was the IDF spokesman, was tasked with broadcasting nachash tzefa (poisonous snake) warnings of incoming Iraqi SCUD missiles during the First Gulf War.
“Following the decision not to invite students
from Ariel to the US President’s speech in Israel, I demand that the
Student Union inform President Obama that they will not attend his
lecture on Thursday,” Shai wrote on his Facebook wall.
The US Embassy said it was not boycotting
Ariel University, located in the eponymous settlement deep inside the
West Bank, but rather was only offering tickets to the speech to schools
with which it has a partnership.
Ariel became a university last year after a highly contested political fight.
But Shai said the US was boycotting Ariel students because of where they study.
“It is shocking to think that you can
disqualify students just because they learn in the West Bank. I do not
understand how President Obama wants to conduct a dialogue with the
Israeli public when he is consciously excluding part of it,” he said.
Of course, he's right. We are constantly being lectured by our own Left and by the Obama administration about how one must make peace with enemies. I would not call the students of Ariel enemies of the US (although I'm sure many of them don't like Obama personally), but I have to wonder how the President plans to influence the Israeli public if he's going to exclude people whom he sees as likely to disagree with him.
I really hope that the speech has a question and answer period and that the students take the opportunity to nail him while they can. If you're a student at one of the universities and are going to the speech, I may be able to help you come up with some good questions.
Students from university in Samaria to be excluded from Obama speech
How's this for petty? President Hussein Obama is going to be speaking at the Binyanei HaUma convention center in Jerusalem (aside: What a traffic nightmare). Tickets are being distributed, mostly to university students. But there's one university whose students aren't getting any tickets: Ariel University in Samaria.
In a meeting Tuesday with students from Ariel University in Samaria
(Shomron), MK Yoni Chetboun discovered that Ariel U students were not
being allowed to attend.
Chetboun questioned the decision to exclude Ariel students, particularly in light of Obama’s decision not to speak in Knesset.
Obama’s staff have previously stated that the American president will
not address Knesset because his visit “is not political.”
“The President’s decision not to speak in Israel’s house of
representatives, the symbol and stronghold of Israeli democracy and
sovereignty, is strange in itself and gives rise to questions,” Chetboun
said. “There is no precedent for a visiting foreign leader addressing
citizens directly.”
“However,” he continued, “these things are all the more strange due
to inconsistency. On the one hand, the President says he intends for his
visit to be apolitical, but in the same breath, he makes a political
decision to exclude Ariel University from his speech.”
“If the president invites students from every Israeli university, he
should invite representatives from Ariel University as well,” Chetboun
declared. Ignoring Ariel University is a sign of non-recognition of the
Israeli government’s decision to give it university status, he said.
Chetboun has written to U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro in
protest. “I cannot understand or accept your decision,” he wrote. “Ariel
University was recognized as a university by Israel’s government. In
excluding students from Ariel, the American government is taking a
clear, one-sided stance, while declaring that the visit is not
political.”
“As a Member of Knesset who was elected by Israelis from across the
country, including Judea and Samaria, I want to believe that the
decision came from the president’s staff and advisors, and not from the
president himself,” Chetboun added.
Student representatives from Ariel expressed frustration at the
decision as well. “We were pretty shocked at the discrimination,” said
Student Union head Shai Shachaf.
While the students may not be invited, “in any case we will be present in the area,” he added.
Given his refusal to speak at the Knesset as well, maybe Obama is trying to avoid recognizing the State of Israel. If so, that should be deeply troubling to all Israelis, and not just to those on the Right who supported the decision to give Ariel university status.
I don't why we invited him, but maybe we can still retract....
The master of understatement: Israel's connection to Ariel no weaker than England's connection to the Falklands
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
This is the first I heard of it, but current Education Minister Gidon Saar wants to be Foreign Minister in the next government. (Who says you need special qualifications for any ministry in this country?)
He started on the trail on Saturday by blasting the UK for a statement on Thursday expressing 'deep disappointment' with the upgrade of Ariel University to university status.That's fine but the way Saar went about it was a little odd. Saar said that Israel's attachment to Ariel is at least as strong as Britain's attachment to the Falkland Islands (which are off the coast of Argentina).
Speaking at a political event in Nes Tsiona on Saturday, Sa'ar
responded that the real obstacle to peace is "incitement in the
Palestinian educational system" and not the upgrade to the Ariel
University Center.
"Ariel has always been an integral part of the
State of Israel. Our connection to Ariel is no less than England's
connection to the Falkland Islands," Sa'ar stated.
Ariel is a little closer to Jerusalem than the Falklands are to London. Maybe he could have said Manchester or Liverpool (which are also further away than Ariel)? Or does Saar have family in Argentina?
The good news is that if Saar is no longer Education Minister, maybe they will get rid of his edict that requires most elementary school children to wear uniform shirts to school. My sons would be thrilled if they became optional.
Britain 'deeply disappointed' they have to boycott another university
British Foreign Office Minister Alastair Burt described his country as being 'deeply disappointed' that Israel is putting his country out to boycott another university - this one over the green line.
"Ariel is beyond the Green Line in a settlement that is illegal
according to international law," Burt stated. "This decision will deepen
the presence of the settlements in the Palestinian territories and will
create another obstacle to peace."
He
added that in a conversation with Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas last week, he had commended the PA's "measured response"
to the recent settlement decisions.
"We welcome that President
Abbas has publicly rejected the recent inflammatory statements by Hamas
leaders, and that he has stated clearly the position of the legitimate
Palestinian Leadership which has accepted the State of Israel in 1967
borders," Burt continued.
A few thoughts:
1. Mr. Burt might have some credibility were his country's academics not already boycotting every Israeli university that's within the 'green line' 1949 armistice lines.
2. The 'settlements' are not illegal under 'international law.' Mr. Burt might gain some credibility if he at least acknowledged the matter as being under dispute.
3. The commendation of the 'Palestinian Authority's 'measured response' is the icing on the cake. Were it not for the support of Britain and other Western countries, the 'Palestinian' end run around negotiations would not have been anywhere near the event it was.
In summary, Mr. Burt and his foreign office have little to no credibility in the eyes of Israelis and will be overwhelmingly dismissed by them. Given that Britain did more to thwart the establishment of a Jewish state than any country in the world (including the Arabs), his country starts from a point of zero credibility anyway. What is he trying to accomplish by issuing statements like this one?
Supreme Court rejects petition seeking to block Ariel College from University status
Israel's Supreme Court has rejected a petition from the Presidents of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, the University of Haifa and the Open University, which sought to block the Ariel Academic College from becoming a university.
The court gave the university presidents the opportunity to amend the
petition and file again at the end of January, with a request to reverse
the decision to recognize Ariel as a university, since Defense Minister
Ehud Barak ordered the upgrade on Monday.
The university presidents had argued....
“These are election days and any decision on this sensitive matter at
this time can be interpreted as a political move. There is no logic in
acting so urgently,” the document states. Among other arguments, the
members of the council wrote that they worry that Ariel’s new status
will lead to budget cuts for the other universities in the country.
Ariel isn't out of the woods yet.
While there are many scenarios where the injunction request may be
rejected or temporarily granted but with AUC still becoming a
university, the quick move by the court signals that it is taking the
university presidents' request seriously.
Why did the university presidents do this? Two reasons. First, Ariel is located in Samaria and most of Israel's universities (like everyplace else in the world) are dominated by flaming Leftists. In fact, that may be why the President of Bar Ilan University (which is known to be more tolerant of Rightist students) apparently did not join the petition.
The second reason for the petition is sheer piggishness: They don't want any more competition.
This would be the first time since the Open University officially
recognized in 1980 that an Israeli institute of higher learning has been
accredited.
1980. It's been 32 years since another university was accredited in this country Simply unbelievable.
You will recall the story of Dr. Ronen Cohen of Ariel University, which I posted earlier this week. Dr. Cohen was 'uninvited' from a conference in Germany when the sponsoring university discovered that he taught at a university that is in Samaria.
Dr. Cohen has now been reinstated. JPost is taking all the credit, but we know the truth....
According to the DAVO program Cohen was listed to speak on “The Iranian Hojjatiyeh—an Anti-Baha'i Sect—The Real Followers of the Mahdi.”
Cohen, who is presently in Israel, told the Post during a telephone interview that “I represent myself.”
He added, “I am not going there to give a talk about Ariel, about the territories or the Israel-Palestinian situation.”
It is “unfair to mix politics with the academy” and wants to “present his research,” said Cohen who is affiliated with the Ariel University Center of Samaria.
In the past, he said, when there was an attempt to exclude him from delivering a paper in Los Angeles, defenders of academic freedom resisted the boycott effort.
“In Europe it is different,” said Cohen.
News of the email had unleashed a storm of criticism from Israel's Embassy in Berlin, the city's Jewish community, the University of Mainz, and German academics.
The embassy “strongly opposes the boycott of an Israeli researcher based on his academic affiliation. Such a boycott does not contribute to academic freedom,” said Emmanuel Nahshon, the deputy chief of mission for Israel's Embassy in Germany.
Dr. Peter Waldmann, who heads the Jewish community in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate where DAVO is located compared Meyer's actions with the Nazis in the 1930s who expelled Jewish academics from universities.
He charged that Meyer was an anti-Zionist who applied a double standard by inviting professors from the Arab world to the conference even though they are from countries that violate human rights.
The local Jewish community finds Meyer's decision to be "extraordinarily problematic, a political catastrophe, and very , very bad,” said Waldmann.
Meyer told the Post via email that “As stressed before, DAVO expelled Mr. Cohen on the basis of international law. This has nothing to do with modern anti-Semitism because scholars from Israel with the exception of universities in the occupied territories are welcome.”
Meyer could not cite any academics with the exception of Israelis who have been expelled over the years from DAVO events.
“As Chairman of the Advisory Council of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES) I excepted the decision of the organizing General Secretariat of WOCMES-2 in Amman 2007 to exclude two scholars from Ariel and informed them accordingly,” he said.
After the Post contacted the Johannes Gutenberg- University in Mainz (JGU), where Meyer works, the management of JGU deleted the DAVO website from the university server, according to a spokeswoman from university.
The JGU administration told the Post that the university “strictly rejects all forms of anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia. We regret that Dr. Cohen was not invited to speak.”
The JGU administration said Meyer “is as active as a private person for DAVO and not in his academic post as a professor at JGU” and the “DAVO is not an institution or institute of the JGU and we did not have any knowledge that DAVO was listed on the University's server.”
DAVO apparently has a history of this stuff.
Dr. Clemens Heni, a German academic and expert on modern anti-Semitism and Islam in the Federal Republic, told the Post that uninviting "an Israeli scholar from Ariel University is outrageous and unacceptable, though a typical action taken by German scholars in the field of Islam and Middle Eastern Studies. The city of Ariel is in the disputed territories. Obviously DAVO does not like Jews living in the so called West Bank, which in fact is the land of Samaria (like the city of Ariel), a land Jews lived for thousands of years.”
Heni said his new book Schadenfreude. Islamic Studies and Antisemitism in Germany after 9/11 addresses the controversial association DAVO. He noted that the upcoming DAVO congress does not offer “a single lecture or workshop on Muslim or Arab antisemitism.”
He sees the the boycott of Ariel University by DAVO and Meyer as “part of the worldwide anti-Semitic BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) campaign."
The only reason this came to light was the blatantly anti-Semitic email that was sent to Dr. Cohen. There are probably dozens of cases like this that never see the light of day.
German Middle East studies group bans participants from Ariel University
On Sunday, the email below was forwarded to me. It is reprinted here with Dr. Cohen's permission.
From: Meyer, Guenter Date: Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 3:07 PM
Subject: Cancellation of Participation in the DAVO Congress
To: Ronen A. Cohen
Dear Ronen A. Cohen,
I am very sorry to inform you that the Council of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO) has decided to cancel your participation in the 18th International Congress of DAVO in Berlin on 6-8 October 2011.
It is not acceptable that a representative of an illegally established Israeli university in the occupied territories is participating in this conference. The settlement of Ariel represents a clear violation of international law. This cannot be tolerated by DAVO.
I would like to stress that this decision of the DAVO Council has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Scholars from Israel are most welcome as participants of this international conference - but scholars from an illegal university in the occupied territories are not welcome.
Yours sincerely,
Guenter Meyer
Chairman of DAVO
-----------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Guenter Meyer
Centre for Research on the Arab World (CERAW),
University of Mainz
55099 Mainz - Germany
e-mail: g.meyer@geo.uni-mainz.de
www.geo.uni-mainz.de/meyer
www.davo.uni-mainz.de
--
Dr. Ronen A. Cohen
Dept. of Middle Eastern & Israel Studies/Political Science
Ariel University Center (AUC), Israel
--
Prof. Alexander Bligh, Ph.D.
Ariel University Center Middle East Research Center, Director
Ariel is not an 'illegal settlement' (nor are any of the 'settlements' illegal). And since when has a German university become a part of law enforcement even if they were? And why should Professor Cohen and his students (many of whom are Arabs!) be penalized because someone claims (incorrectly) that Ariel is an 'illegal settlement.'
Where is our ambassador in German and is s/he protesting this blatantly anti-Israel policy?
150 Israeli 'academics' have signed a petition calling for the boycott of Israel's newest university because it is located in Ariel.
The petition, initiated by Professor Nir Gov of the Weizmann Institute's Department of Chemical Physics, states that the Ariel was established on occupied land and is within proximity to Palestinians forced to live in harsh conditions and lacking basic human rights.
In addition, the petition states that the settlement is a key factor preventing Israelis from living in peace with its neighbors. Therefore, signatories expressed refusal to engage in any academic activity at the center in Ariel.
Professor Ron Naaman of the Weizmann Institute, a signatory of the petition, said during an interview Sunday with Israel Radio that the academic activities carried out in the West Bank hurt the State of Israel.
The goal of the protest, Naaman claimed, was to differentiate between academics at the Ariel center and the academics in the rest of Israel. This, Naaman concluded, would help combat the de-legitimization of Israeli academia in the rest of the world.
Other academic factions in Israel have come out with statements discouraging such protest.
Professor Rivka Carmi, chair of the Heads of University Committee, has urged fellow faculty members to oppose the boycotts, claiming that such protests do not represent any academic institutions in Israel, and that the boycotts are irrelevant to other academic boycotts taking place around the world.
Indeed, they are. But it's rather curious to hear Carmi, the Dean of Ben Gurion University, say so.
I wonder if she learned anything from what happened on her own campus last year.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
