fbpx

Netanyahu responds to housing protests

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to further free up the housing market after thousands of Israelis demonstrated against high living costs.\n
[additional-authors]
July 25, 2011

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to further free up the housing market after thousands of Israelis demonstrated against high living costs.

Netanyahu opened his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday by defending government economic policies in the face of mounting criticism from Israel’s beleaguered middle class.

“This crisis is real,” he said. “We not only identify with it, we recognized it years ago.”

Building on a cascade of strikes in Israel’s civil service, students have been camping out in city centers this month to protest the dearth of affordable housing. Some 20,000 demonstrators from the various movements joined forces for an anti-government rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Some protesters scuffled with police while trying to block roads, leading to 43 arrests.

Netanyahu, a former finance minister who has long championed privatization, blamed the state “monopoly” on land ownership and building regulations for the lag in satisfying spiraling demands for housing.

His two years in office have seen a 50 percent increase in the number of housing starts, he said, as well as progress in developing the transportation infrastructure to the more sparsely populated Israeli periphery.

Speaking separately to Israel Radio, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz predicted that property prices would begin to fall by the beginning of next year.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

‘You Did a Good Job’

I have been thinking about the way in which we show, or don’t show, gratitude to our leaders in the workplace, especially in the Jewish community.

Mideast: Lots of Moving Parts

The language of Middle Eastern politics can be frustrating, when one realizes, for example, that a ceasefire does not mean that the combatants have ceased firing at each other.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.