In his lecture at the Sovereignty Youth Seminar, economist Eran Bar-Tal presented the economic benefits of sovereignty and stated: Every sensible person understands that this is the only realistic plan.
In the Oz ve Gaon Reserve in Gush Etzion, the Sovereignty Youth Movement held its annual seminar, which was held in the form of capsules and in accordance with the guidelines of the Ministry of Health.
The economist Eran Bar Tal told of how, during his visit a few days ago to Dubai, he repeatedly encountered residents of the Emirates “who cannot understand why we do not have sovereignty over the Land of Israel”, in his words. “For years, we thought that the Arab world was the obstacle, and now we understand that not only is it not an obstacle, but that they do not understand how it is that while we have held the territory since ’67, we don’t have the courage to say that these territories are ours and we do not have the courage to apply sovereignty over them. This is a great failure because it makes us occupiers. If you don’t apply sovereignty, you are an occupier. It is our responsibility to apply sovereignty”.
Bar-Tal told the youths about the research that he did with students from the Technion and with the National Vision movement about a decade ago to investigate the economic ramifications of sovereignty: “We divided Judea and Samaria into units of territory to be priced, what the land would be worth in the present situation without sovereignty and what it would be worth the day after sovereignty compared with parallel areas. The state decreases the value of the land when it doesn’t apply sovereignty over the area. The value of the area changes according to its legal status. If the state decides that certain land does not belong to it, its value decreases by tens of percent. When the state declares that an area belongs to it, its value jumps by hundreds of percent”.
Bar-Tal also addressed the significance of the application of sovereignty on the housing industry, stating that “the housing problem is one that we ourselves create. We have land in Judea and Samaria, much of which is in areas of high demand, in the center of the country, and for some reason, it is all “occupied” according to a governmental decision. This fact prevents us from populating it with Jews, which is the purpose of our gathering here, to be a magnet for the Jews of the Diaspora, to be a Jewish home for the People of Israel. Recent governmental decisions indicate that we have forgotten why we have gathered here. Look at the forecasts of the Central Bureau of Statistics and you will understand that in less than three decades, we will double Israel’s population. Where will these nine million go?”.
“I have friends who are Arab journalists in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Dubai, and they ask me these questions. They ask ‘what are you doing in Judea and Samaria?’ If it is yours, why don’t you take it; if it is not yours, why don’t you leave?”
Bar-Tal also related to the manpower aspect: “People ask what we will do with all the Arabs in Judea and Samaria. No reasonable person, on the Left or on the Right, has any solution other than to employ the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. It’s either starve them or allow them to work. They want to work and we need them as laborers”.
There is now a lobby in the Knesset to bring in foreign workers. I asked them how many people they need and was told that without thirty thousand workers the price would rise by three percent per month, and this is true. This would be about forty percent per year. We don’t have enough Israelis who can work in construction and we have the solution in our back yard. We don’t have to bring in Chinese and Romanian people. We should employ the Arabs from Judea and Samaria who have no work and their salary there is less than two thousand shekels per month, while we pay them 8000 and we turn a family in crisis to a thriving family. Arab friends tell me that if an Arab head of a family has work in Israel, their daughters make a better match for marriage. They want this”.
Bar-Tal verbally attacked and criticized the conduct of the human rights organizations, which he defined as contributing to the trampling of human rights. “These are anti-humanitarian organizations that cause people to be hungry on one hand, and on the other hand cause the state to be involved in the madness of bringing in foreign workers, while perpetuating the conflict. It is a self-feeding system”.
According to him, with the money that Israel would earn, “it would be possible to improve the infrastructure of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria and to make it possible for them to have a better life with more money, which we could give them, as well as to open the Jewish State for the absorption of the Jewish People who are not yet here”.
Bar-Tal continued by mentioning the aspect of cash flow: “Another aspect of these things, as to whether will they pay or not, is capital. At the moment, we don’t have control over cash flow and the money that has flowed in the billions, disguised as humanitarian aid from the Arab oil countries to terror infrastructures instead of schools, hospitals and roads. This capital does not find its way into anything positive, that would build the economy”.
Bar-Tal states that the political discourse does not relate to income that would result from the application of sovereignty, “We don’t do this, not for an economic reason but for an ideological reason, led by the side that is interested in separation”. In his opinion, this approach is nothing but “a bunch of slogans, ‘to allow them self-determination’, etc. but there is evil behind this, not only toward us but toward them as well. And many of the Arabs that I meet understand this. To say that we will put up a wall and be separated means that we will starve them behind that wall”.
“From an economic, humanitarian point of view, there is no other solution and today, even the most radical Leftist understands this. The idea of separation is not practical and not only because of the idea of expelling hundreds of thousands of Jews. Such a state is not feasible in the Middle East without the State of Israel. “Everyone understands this in Dubai, but it is still difficult to explain this to someone in Tel Aviv because they have convinced us with nice human rights slogans that we are evil occupiers and if only we would get out of there, they would have a lot of food”.
Bar-Tal added that we must remember that “our goal is to preserve a Jewish State here. Our grandparents came here because this was their goal”. In this spirit and under this principle, Bar-Tal believes, it will be possible to grant citizenship, carefully and in a measured way. “This principle is clear to every citizen in Dubai as well. There are many there who have married women from the U.S., but even after years, these women still are not citizens”.