Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel: The unrepentant builder

...Housing Minister Uri Ariel is determined to continue building in West Bank despite international pressure and says economic incentives will help the Palestinians much more than construction freezes.

Gil Hoffman..
Frontlines/JPost..
02 October '14..

Going into Yom Kippur, if there is anyone in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s cabinet that US President Barack Obama’s administration would like to apologize, it’s Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel.

The Obama administration arguably has taken a tougher stance on construction over the pre-1967 borders than any of its predecessors. Its condemnation of the advancement of a building project in Jerusalem’s Givat Hamatos neighborhood was especially fierce.

While some Israeli analysts would say it is Obama’s obsession with settlements and not Israel’s construction in them that has prevented the advancement of a diplomatic process with the Palestinians, there is no doubt that the American president sees Ariel and his policies as a diplomatic obstacle.

It is extremely doubtful that Ariel will be granted entrance to the White House any time soon – just like his namesake, Ariel Sharon, was once boycotted in Washington when he had Ariel’s job.

Washington’s assessment of that Ariel ended up being way off course in retrospect. Could the same be true of this Ariel? The No. 2 man in Bayit Yehudi and the head of the Tekuma party that is expected to merge into it will apparently never make a Sharon-like shift. But he does want to reach out to the Palestinians.

In an interview at his office in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah – which for Obama, is on the wrong side of the Green Line – Ariel explains what socioeconomic incentives can be given to the Palestinians which could help them much more than another construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, or linking building to releasing more Palestinian prisoners.

“We don’t have a partner on the other side,” Ariel says.

“The possibility of getting to a deal in the future does not exist any more than in the past or present. The prime minister knows [Bayit Yehudi’s] opinion, and I hope he won’t be pressured by [Yesh Atid leader] Yair Lapid and [Hatnua head] Tzipi Livni to do things that are wrong and unhelpful.”

Ariel says he hopes Operation Protective Edge persuaded Israelis how important it is for the IDF to control all of Judea and Samaria, so they will not become launching pads for missiles like Gaza and Lebanon.

But he clarifies that the regional diplomatic process Lapid was pushing for at the time of the interview and Netanyahu called for at the UN and in the White House this week would not be a casus belli that would cause Bayit Yehudi to quit the coalition.

“There could be dialogue for the sake of dialogue so there won’t be a disconnect, but it will not bring results,” he says. “Talking is not a reason for dismantling the government. The question is what those talks would bring.

A building freeze would be a reason for a crisis.”

Uri Ariel - New housing minister, new possibilities.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
22 March '13..

Uri Ariel, the new housing minister from Habayit Hayehudi, has been a constant fixture of the settlement movement in Judea and Samaria. He has two sayings that have stayed with him for many years. One is taken from the animal world: "We have stopped being part of the insect world and have joined the world of the predators."

This metaphor was coined when Ariel and his colleagues decided to move away from extra-parliamentary activity and go into politics and the Knesset. But when they moved from the opposition into the government, the saying was updated in an attempt to show that Ariel and his colleagues mean business. Once they had to crawl for the sake of the settlement movement in Judea and Samaria and play second fiddle to larger interests. They now intend to lead and shape reality as they see fit.

The second saying that has stayed with Ariel is more conventional: "The tribes of Israel gathered together" (Deuteronomy 33:5). Ariel often quotes this biblical verse when he is asked to explain his total commitment to sectors of the population that are not necessarily close to his heart. Ariel helped everyone, including the ultra-Orthodox. He has no intention of doing differently now that he has been appointed a minister.

His fellow travelers throughout Judea and Samaria think highly of him. People's expectations of him are high, perhaps even too high. Among the settlers, successes or failures will be measured according to his ability to narrow the gap between what they would like to see happen — massive construction in the settlements that turns the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria into an irreversible reality — and what is likely to happen: a short political leash that, for the moment, will not allow much construction over the Green Line. The more Ariel narrows this gap, the higher the marks he will get from his associates. The more he is reconciled to the powers that be, the more disappointed they will be in him.

Ariel himself has already sketched a broad outline of his policy. He intends to build 40,000 housing units throughout the country (not including Judea and Samaria), mostly in Israel's north and south. He wants to connect the periphery to the center of the country with an improved network of public transportation to make the outlying areas more attractive. He also promises to lower housing prices — less so in areas that are more in demand, and more on the periphery — and believes that this will happen gradually, starting in 2014. He will try to open the cement market to free competition and also shorten the time period in which opposition to construction plans may be submitted.