Mar 4, 2012
The Bet Shemesh Partition Plan Continues To Stay On the Agenda
For the past 10 weeks or so, the idea of splitting Bet Shemesh has been on the table. No matter how many times some try to remove it from the agenda, it keeps getting put back on. While initially it looked like the suggestion would not have a chance at passing even local support, let alone at the national government level, it looks like the local activists behind the idea have somehow kept it on the agenda and are working on turning it into a realistic idea, and eventually reality.
Two weeks ago it was reported that the local activists succeeded in presenting their partition plan to Prime Minister Netanyahu about how the division would work. Now, Calcalist is reporting, Netanyahu has appointed Deputy Minister Gila Gamliel to the position of being responsible for analyzing the possibility.
Mayor of Bet Shemesh Moshe Abutbol continues to oppose the partition plan, as I think he well should, though I think his explanations are demeaning and are meant to avoid discussing the actual issue by accusing of its proponents of having a political agenda. Abutbol has responded that it is not serious and it is simply local Likud activists who want to bring back the reins of local power to Likud hands, as it used to be. I think he is doing a disservice to the necessity to oppose the plan, which seems to be picking up steam, by saying this. Perhaps that is part of it, but the main issue is the housing - the people of old Bet Shemesh feel locked out of all new building projects. They feel the city has been taken from them. To stop this plan, that is something that needs to be dealt with.
Instead of building with poor planning at massive speeds just to solve a national housing problem for the haredi community, add some new neighborhoods - not jut a few buildings - to be designated for the general public, young couples who recently finished army service, "children of the city", and the like. As much as he says anybody can buy int he new neighborhoods, everybody knows that the plans are designed to attract young haredi couples, and while technically anybody could buy if they wanted to, nobody besides a young haredi couple will want to. There is so much land available that there is no reason not to build for others as well.
Activists pushing the partition plan have said that the haredi sector works by organizing large and well-organized purchase groups to buy out projects quickly, and that takes away the ability from anyone else to buy in the new areas.
Deputy Minister Gamliel said to Calcalist that "we must effect some sort of division in the housing rights in Bet Shemesh. We must create a system that will allow houses in Bet Shemesh to also be purchased by residents of the original part of the city, as well by the children, as well by the secular public who want to live in the city. The current situation, in which all apartments put on the market are snapped up by purchase groups that contain only the haredi public, is damaging to the veteran residents. If to keep the composition of the population we will have to make a geographical division of the city, I do not discount that option."
As I said above, there is so much land available that Abutbol and others involved should immediately announce the planning of a new neighborhood (or two) for veteran residents, children of the city, yotzei tzava and the general public. As long as he keeps dismissing the issue, and just responding "anybody can buy", this partition plan will not go away. Unless maybe that is his goal - maybe he wants to divide Bet Shemesh and knows that this is what it takes. I don't give him that much credit. he should build some neighborhoods for them and put an end to this.
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Two weeks ago it was reported that the local activists succeeded in presenting their partition plan to Prime Minister Netanyahu about how the division would work. Now, Calcalist is reporting, Netanyahu has appointed Deputy Minister Gila Gamliel to the position of being responsible for analyzing the possibility.
Mayor of Bet Shemesh Moshe Abutbol continues to oppose the partition plan, as I think he well should, though I think his explanations are demeaning and are meant to avoid discussing the actual issue by accusing of its proponents of having a political agenda. Abutbol has responded that it is not serious and it is simply local Likud activists who want to bring back the reins of local power to Likud hands, as it used to be. I think he is doing a disservice to the necessity to oppose the plan, which seems to be picking up steam, by saying this. Perhaps that is part of it, but the main issue is the housing - the people of old Bet Shemesh feel locked out of all new building projects. They feel the city has been taken from them. To stop this plan, that is something that needs to be dealt with.
Instead of building with poor planning at massive speeds just to solve a national housing problem for the haredi community, add some new neighborhoods - not jut a few buildings - to be designated for the general public, young couples who recently finished army service, "children of the city", and the like. As much as he says anybody can buy int he new neighborhoods, everybody knows that the plans are designed to attract young haredi couples, and while technically anybody could buy if they wanted to, nobody besides a young haredi couple will want to. There is so much land available that there is no reason not to build for others as well.
Activists pushing the partition plan have said that the haredi sector works by organizing large and well-organized purchase groups to buy out projects quickly, and that takes away the ability from anyone else to buy in the new areas.
As I said above, there is so much land available that Abutbol and others involved should immediately announce the planning of a new neighborhood (or two) for veteran residents, children of the city, yotzei tzava and the general public. As long as he keeps dismissing the issue, and just responding "anybody can buy", this partition plan will not go away. Unless maybe that is his goal - maybe he wants to divide Bet Shemesh and knows that this is what it takes. I don't give him that much credit. he should build some neighborhoods for them and put an end to this.
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Abutbol believes the partition will never go through, and in the meantime is doing all he can to avoid "ceding" any land to non-haredi groups.
ReplyDeleteHe still thinks he has a lock on the next election so long as the percentage of haredi residents keeps going up.
he may very well be right, because I doubt the non-haredi public will find a candidate they will all unite behind and support.
ReplyDeletehis biggest threat will be from the haredi ashkenazim who will want to field their own candidate
I am also against the partition idea - but if I have to be honest, it's not because I think it's a bad solution per se, but because I'm afraid my house is going to end up on the "wrong" side of the partition. If I lived in "old" Beit Shemesh and didn't think too much about people like me in RBS-A, I would probably also support partitioning the city, so that I would not feel the financial burden of RBS-B on my arnona bill, and I would watch with keen interest how the new putative municipality would get by with hardly anyone paying arnona. But as it is, seeing as I and people like me, who work and pay our arnona, live in RBS-A, and are likely to be the freierim left holding the bill for a much, much greater percentage of non-arnona-payers, I am dead against it. If you could somehow draw a border that excludes all the sikrikim and their sympathizers, I would love to cut them surgically out of my municipality. But seeing as that is a highly unlikely situation, and you are bound to damage a lot of innocent bystanders by lumping them in with the bad guys, rather leave Beit Shemesh intact and focus on driving the sikrikim out.
ReplyDeleteIs the problem Sikrikim, or haredi politicians who push their agenda on everyone and when they try to fill ordinary municipal roles look like they don't know what they're doing? (Rafi where's that link to the ride-em cowboy shots of the new director of waterworks??)
ReplyDeletei think this was an issue that was festering, but was exacerbated and has come to a head when the sikrikim got out of hand. at that point they decided the situation is intolerable and will only get worse
ReplyDeleteI'm with Shaul. This is a tough border to draw. The only way to do it that even approaches fairness would be to place all the under-construction and in-planning neighborhoods to the South of RBS A in the new city, and start from there. I think the haredi community somehow has to decide whether they want to live in an integrated way with others, as Jonathan Rosenblum often writes about, or in segragated communities, the way the trend on the ground seems to be. If the latter, fine. If the former, the national government needs to step in forcefully to make sure the rights of all are protected, including the rights of haredim to buy where they want, and the rights of non-haredim not to have haredi restrictions enforced on mixed communities (e.g., no tzniut signs, no rabbis deciding what newspapers and magazines can be distributed, no rabbis breaking up or preventing public entertainment and events that don't meet with their approval). These things go together - if haredim do not want to be discriminated against in housing, they must stop imposing their lifestyle on the rest of us as soon as their population reaches a critical mass in any given community.
ReplyDeleteHowever much I will be happy to stop supporting the free-loaders in RBS Bet who seem to think that the my tax money is some kind of Yisachar-Zevulun arrangement (that also entitles them to spit in my face - figuratively or not), I ideologically oppose partition. I could just as well include the Kirya (Nahala UMenucha) and other bits of old Beit Shemesh and end up living in an enclave of people exclusively who I approve of in Sheinfeld (and some of them I don't like either :-)). This is not what Zionism is about. Somehow we're going to have to live together.
ReplyDelete