Building in settlements stay at ‘freeze’ level - Housing starts dropped 65% in third quarter.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would have no need to order a second freeze on new settler homes in the West Bank, because a de facto one already exists, according to Central Bureau of Statistics data published on Wednesday. There were just as few settler housing starts in the third quarter of this year as there were during the same period in 2010, when the government imposed a moratorium on such activity. Work began on 105 settler homes between July and September of this year, compared with the 113 starts in the same months in 2010, the CBS said.
...there was a 60% drop in the number of West Bank Jewish homes completed in the in the third quarter, to 179, down from 447 in the second quarter, according to the CBS. That’s a 53% drop when compared with the 382 settler homes that were completed in the third quarter of last year.
Hagit Ofran of Peace Now said she could not explain the sharp drop in the CBS numbers. “In the field, the numbers are dramatically higher,” Ofran said.
...Dani Dayan, who heads the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, said, however, that the data did not surprise him.
“Not enough new housing approvals have been granted,” he said. The pipeline of approvals from past governments is getting dryer and dryer.”
The council has long warned of a de facto freeze and has repeatedly called on Netanyahu to issue building permits.
...Shmuel Levy, who heads the Association of Building and Infrastructure Contractors of the Jerusalem area, echoed Dayan’s statements. “It’s as if there was a freeze,” Levy said. The government has bowed to American pressure and is not issuing new permits, and as a result, there is little new construction, he said.
This is news to me but, then again, I live in Shiloh.
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UPDATE
And who is constructing?
Eager to make up for lost years, released Palestinian prisoners build houses, hunt for brides
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian prisoners released in a swap for an Israeli soldier last month are racing to make up for lost time: Many of the 477 former inmates are already getting married, building homes or enrolling in college, even as Israel keeps a close eye on them in fear they could return to violence.
...As part of their welcome home, they have received startup grants of up to $10,000 from the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and the Hamas government in Gaza, and there is talk of stipends and apartments.
...Israeli counterterrorism expert Yoni Fighel said a successful transition to civilian life would reduce the likelihood of a relapse. “If they have work, a salary, an incentive to start a family and get established, the attractiveness of terrorism will be reduced,” he said.
The zeal with which some of the prisoners are trying to catch up suggests they do not want to risk their newfound freedom.
Muayad Abdel Samed, 50, who spent half his life behind bars for killing an Israeli border police officer, said he believes in peaceful means for obtaining Palestinian independence.
“After these long years in prison, and at my age, and the political changes that occurred on our Palestinian case, our duties are less than before,” Abdel Samed said as he mixed cement for a house he is building with an $8,000 government grant.
Abdel Samed hopes to find a bride. He also applied for a monthly stipend from the Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government that was set up six years after he went to prison in 1987.
I just hope there is no dead body in that cement.
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