About 5,000 settlement activists participated in the annual march through Samaria on Monday, vowing that the West Bank will always be part of “Eretz Yisrael,” or Greater Israel.
They inaugurated a new neighborhood in Karnei Shomron named Neve Menachem, in memory of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the Likud leader who died last month.
Addressing the throng, Police Minister Ronni Milo said it was Begin’s will to establish multitudes of Jewish neighborhoods in “our Eretz Yisrael.”
Milo observed that 120,000 Jews now live in some 100 settlements, “and they will never leave.”
But rousing rhetoric preached to the faithful has less influence on the fate of the territories than the relentless housing drive now under way, aimed at attracting as many Jewish residents as possible, regardless of ideology.
More than 2,000 apartments in the territories are ready or almost ready for habitation. Another 4,000 are in various stages of construction.
Although housing in Israel proper remains expensive and in short supply, roomy 72-squareyard apartments are being offered in the West Bank, just a half hour’s drive from Jerusalem, for as little as $36,400.
Moreover, the government eagerly grants potential settlers $20,000 loans, half of which is forgiven.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
