The National Planning and Building Council on Tuesday voted 17-5 to recommend the establishment of two new Jewish villages in the Golan Heights in northern Israel.
The future community of Orcha is to be located in the East Golan Heights, about five kilometers (three miles) north of Moshav Ramat Magashim. The peas are set to be built in the northern part of the field, one kilometer south of Moshav Shal.
Both areas are sparsely populated, with less than 10 people per square kilometer. There are plans to eventually have 2,000 housing units for each community.
A statement issued by the Israel Lands Authority said the plan, which also included boosting the population of Katzrin, was aimed at meeting the “high demand” for housing in the Golan Heights, improving services there and between The gap was to be reduced. Country and perimeter.
But several groups have publicly opposed the move, including the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and Society for the Conservation of Nature in Israel (Sleep).
A SPNI statement said that from ecological, scenic, planning, economic and social perspectives, expanding and strengthening existing settlements was preferable to building new ones.
Israeli hike near the Jalaboun stream, Golan Heights on April 23, 2022. (Michael Gilady / Flash 90)
The Golan Heights is one of the most important regions in Israel for nature, tourism and leisure, attracting thousands of hikers and vacationers each year, said Asaf Zanzuri, SPNI’s coordinator of planning policy.
Local residents need a hospital, stronger educational institutions and more job opportunities, he said, not a plan he dismissed as a plan to further the election campaign. The strengthening of the Jewish presence in the Golan Heights is likely to be popular among right-wing voters ahead of the November 1 election.
Israel seized the western two-thirds of the Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and expanded Israeli law in 1981 in a move not recognized by the international community. In 2019, the then US President Donald Trump broke the consensus by recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Ministers attend a special cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights on December 26, 2021. (Coby Gideon/GPO)
While the Golan makes up five percent of Israel’s claimed territory, only 0.5% of Israelis live there. In October, then-prime minister Naftali Bennett announced the government’s intention to dramatically increase the number of people living in the area.
In December, the cabinet unanimously approved a NIS 1 billion ($317 million) development plan, aimed at doubling The number of Israelis living in the strategic area in the coming years.
SPNI warning At a time when the plan threatened the open vistas, cascades, cascades and rich biodiversity that make the sparsely populated area a major attraction for Israelis and tourists.
View of the Druze city of Majdal Shams, Golan Heights, northern Israel, February 11, 2021. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)
Instead of reinventing the wheel, the state should use some of the 12,000 existing permits for residential construction that have not been implemented. An additional 4,500 permits exist for construction in the city of Katjarin alone.
Some 53,000 people live in the Golan Heights: 27,000 Jews, 24,000 Druze, and some 2,000 Alawites (an ethnic group originating from Shia Islam).
