Plans for the construction of a new neighborhood were announced. The neighborhood would consist of 12,800 living units designated for the Haredi community, to house about 66000 people. The neighborhood will be on an area of 930 dunam and will straddle both sides of the Nehar Dan road.

The plans for this neighborhood will be brought next week to the Jerusalem Region Planning Committee for initial approvals.

There probably isnt a person in the city who has not wondered if or when they will build more housing on the open land adjacent to Nehar Dan.

Objections to the plan are being expressed already. Objections that I have seen point out that Nehar Dan was built with the explicit purpose of being a way around RBS B connecting the RBS A and C communities with the older section of Bet Shemesh, with no need to go through RBS B, thus lessening the traffic burdens of Nehar Hayarden going through RBS B. The objection is that this plan to put housing right on Nehar Dan will make Nehar Dan the busiest road in the city and bring back all that traffic and congestion.

Personally I am not convinced it will cause Nehar Dan to be overly congested. Nehar Dan is a nice large road with two lanes in each direction and perhaps/hopefully it can handle that additional traffic that will result from this construction. Perhaps Nehar Dan might need to be widened further as part of the plan adding an additionallane in each direction. Or maybe additional roads will be built as prt of the infrastructure of the new neighborhood, this splitting the additional burden among multiple roads. Probably no solutions will be offered and it will be a burden. That's usually how it works here - they push to build as much housing as possible without concern about the infrastructure to support it, and then afterwards everyone complains about the traffic or running sewage or whatever. So probably nothing will happen and it will be a burden, but perhaps someone will finally be wise enough to start planning infrastructure improvements alongside housing construction. We can be hopeful. In my opinion, that is one area where they can build housing without it creating a crazy situation of too many residents cramped into a tiny area without enough infrastructure - like the plan to add tall buildings at the corner of Hayarden-Hayarqon just under the top Neve Shamir buildings. That is insane and the infrastructure is already way overloaded and the situation will likely be horrible if that plan goes through (which it surely will because nobody cares about the residents, only about building more buildings).

Other objections are just the general objections of too many people, too much housing, leave some green areas, etc. That bothers me less. People need housing. Where I and you live was also a grassy mountain one time in the past but they built on it. As long as it doesnt create horrible dense living conditions or horrible infrastructural support, build away.

What I do find ironic, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, is the intent of Nehar Dan. In addition to the intention of relieving the traffic burden of Nehar Hayarden through RBS B, back when it was being planned in the Moshe Abutbol days there were a lot of protests on a fairly regular basis and frequently enough they would get violent. Additionally, with Nehard Hayarden being the one road going from RBS A to Bet Shemesh (other than going out to the Highway 38), residents walking through RBS B form one to the other in either direction would often find themselves under attack by the local residents. Moshe Abutbol in planning Nehar Dan, expressed explicitly that it would be a way from RBS A to Bet Shemesh (and back) without needing to go through RBS B and lessen the tensions between communities, add increased safety to the people walking, and provide general relief as a viable alternative.

While the future residents of the new neighborhood might be perfectly lovely and accepting people and nothing may change, there is also the chance of this area becoming somewhat similar to RBS B, especially as it will be very close and adjacent to RBS B, thus possibly making the road built to avoid RBS B just another road going through it with people walking there under attack from the local residents. Hopefully it will be lovely residents accepting of others who dont protest the people walking through.

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That being said, while Netanyahu is kind of stuck and is letting Ben Gvir make a fool of him. He should have fired Ben Gvir last time Ben Gvir voted against a budget vote a couple weeks back, but he didn't, and so far he hasn't after this vote yesterday that went down to the wire and required Netanyahu himself to leave his hospital bed and shlep down from the hospital to vote, and Netanyahu is too weak to fire him because he is afraid of losing his coalition.

The coalition is large enough now that he can technically afford to kick out Ben Gvir, but then he will barely have a majority again and will be at other people's whims without Ben Gvir to bail him out. Keeping Ben Gvir in the coalition makes Netanyahu look weak but it keeps his coalition alive, even if they arent voting in tune with the coalition.

UTJ is more complicated. They too should be fired but won't be. the politicians always quip that UTJ is one party but acts like 7 parties. Each MK represents a different community and each MK acts and behaves like he is his own party and nobody is beholden to any party decisions. When the coalition needs something, the head of the coalition needs to go to each MK from UTJ to make a separate deal rather than just talk it out and deal with the one head of the party. This played out precisely yesterday. The Degel faction voted with the coalition. Goldknopf voted against, and Netanyahu worked out a deal with Eichler and Porush and Tessler and Rot to have enough abstentions instead of votes against so the budget vote could succeed. Masterful on Netanyahu's part to work that all out, but dysfunctional of UTJ.

How can UTJ continue to function properly and efficiently and reliably when none of the MKs follow the instructions of the head of UTJ? How can the head of UTJ make decisions without working it out with the members factions and MKS - did he expect them to be beholden to the Gerrer Rebbe's decision, when the entire essence of the party is that it is made up of different factions each beholden only to his own rebbe? What good is being head of the party if he has no control over the MKs within? In any other party they would sanction the MKs who did not follow the decisions of the party (like Otzma might do for ALmog Cohen who voted with the coalition instead of with Otzma), but he cant punish Degel and he cant sanction the others either. At the same time, how can the head of the coalition work out anything with a party that can't be relied on?

Eichler and Porush were so proud yesterday of going behind Goldknopf's back and working out the deal with Netanyahu, in exchange for a promise of the Draft Law being presented next week. I don't know if the Draft Law will be presented next week or not, but Netanyahu has promised this in the past several times and has not delivered, so I am not sure why they are accepting this promise now, especially Eichler who is fairly militant on this issue.

That being said, if Netanyahu does not follow through with the presentation of the Draft Law next week, Eichler will have egg all over his face. I wonder what he will do then.

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