Israel going for one million Jews in the West Bank - Israel News

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  • Un nouveau ministre du logement israélien qui roule pour les colons.
    Uri Ariel, whose minister of housing ? - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
    http://www.haaretz.com/business/uri-ariel-whose-minister-of-housing.premium-1.509628

    Uri Ariel, the Habayit Hayehudi Knesset member slated to become the housing minister, is a personality well known among West Bank settlers. In the last Knesset he belonged to several lobbies promoting settlements in the West Bank and his party was strongly supported by settlers by way of thanks.

    People in the political establishment now worry that he will focus his attention on his natural constituency, and less on the housing crisis facing the rest of the country.

    “Ariel is a bulldozer in terms of action and building, but mainly for the national-religious population,” says a former associate of his in Habayit Hayehudi’s previous incarnation as the National Religious Party. “He understands how things work, he’s knows the right people and has the ability to get a lot done. But his most significant history is over the Green Line so the assumption is that’s where he will invest most of his energy.”

    • Israel going for one million Jews in the West Bank http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israel-going-for-one-million-jews-in-the-west-bank.premium-1.508510

      The election campaign season comes to its real conclusion this week with the formation of the government and an unadulterated victory for the right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recovered from the blow he took at the ballot box and managed to extract the maximum out of the coalition negotiations he conducted with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Habayit Hayehudi head Naftali Bennett. The old fox schooled the political greenhorns.

      Netanyahu began the negotiations after a month of futile idling that was meant to weaken his partners’ negotiating positions: the highly publicized tiff with Bennett, the crocodile tears over separating from his Haredi former coalition partners, the offer of the Finance Ministry to Labor Party leader Shelly Yacimovich and the promise of renewed talks with the Palestinians to Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni. When all the political spin had settled, the dice came out in Netanyahu’s favor: Foreign and defense policy will remain in the hands of Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu, Lapid has been kicked over to the Finance Ministry and Habayit Hayehudi will be a junior coalition partner.