Israel's Housing Shortage

This week in Israel was the week of the housing prices protest. The person responsible more than any other individual for the outrageously high cost of housing in Israel is the President of the State of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres, the "best man" of the Oslo Accords. Founded on falsehood, the Oslo Accords assert that the heartland of the Land of Israel belongs to another people, significantly reducing the land reserves for building. Twenty years later, Israel is facing a housing shortage and a dramatic increase in housing prices.

Even after the Oslo Accords and the Separation Fence, construction continued in the settlements, providing almost 30% of the land reserves for building. But the building freeze has brought those numbers down to less than 1%. For those of you who understand Hebrew, this short Globes video weighs in with the statistics, showing how the building freeze in Judea and Samaria has directly impacted the housing shortage. http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000602668
Even if some people refuse to pull their heads out of the sand, the direct correlation between the building freeze and the intensifying housing shortage in Israel is a no-brainer.

There is another major factor behind the housing shortage: The State of Israel has an almost complete monopoly on land. This contradicts the Creator's directive to divide the Land between all the families of Israel. Today in Israel, the land belongs to the kingdom, just like it did to Pharaoh -the opposite of what the Torah prescribes. The Israel Land Authority is an unsupervised monopoly that for reasons known only to it does not release land for building, steadily increasing the gap between the number of building starts and the number of households in need of a place to live.

The solution is to return the land to the public and to allow the free market to work. In a free market, where there are buyers there are also sellers. Currently, there are only buyers, but the Land Authority will not sell.

Manhigut Yehudit's Michael Fuah was warmly received this week at the housing protest tents (pictured above). The organizers gave him the floor so that he could explain that the solution for the housing crisis is to build in Judea and Samaria. Fuah also distributed Manhigut Yehudit's position paper on solutions for the housing crisis. As reported in a previous update, this position paper has already been read and seriously considered by the PM and Finance Minister.

There is some concern that the Left is taking advantage of the housing protest for its own agenda. But the hardship is real and we can just as easily channel the energies gaining momentum into a demand for a true solution, that would include building in Judea and Samaria and transferring lands from the Land Authority to the free market.