Settlement construction. (Photo:B’tselem)
Last weekend a bill was passed giving a 35% tax break to organizations “strengthening Zionism and encouraging Zionist settlement.” Though the legislation does not state the specifics of what constitutes a Zionist settlement, Haaretz’s Jonathan Lis finds, “in practice it most likely means giving assistance to organizations that promote settlement beyond the Green Line.”
The sponsor’s of the bill state:
‘In these days of constantly eroding values in general, particularly the values of Zionism and settlement, it is appropriate to return to these values their precedence and restore them to their proper place.’
Individual settlers already receive a number of government subsidies through the states “Investment Incentives and Benefits”[PDF] program. Listed as National Priorities Areas, these incentives include:
[I]n housing, by enabling settlers to purchase quality, inexpensive apartments, with an automatic grant of a subsidized mortgage; wide-ranging benefits in education, such as free education from age three, extended school days, free transportation to schools, and higher teachers’ salaries; for industry and agriculture, by grants and subsidies, and indemnification for the taxes imposed on their produce by the European Union; in taxation, by imposing taxes significantly lower than in communities inside the Green Line, and by providing larger balancing grants to the settlements, to aid in covering deficits.
The new legislation differs from the existing benefits by offering tax breaks to organizations, or settlement community associations, rather than individuals; it’s a small kick to help speed up and funnel Israelis into settlements.
Tax breaks for settlers are like work exemptions for Haredim. They pander to political lobbies, fly in the face of all economic logic and pass the cost of Israel’s inevitable failure onto the next generation.
I think it is, or should be, abundantly clear that Israel is gradually implementing its own preferred ‘solution’ to the I/P situation – that of powerless bantustans, which, due to their tiny size, will in effect be only open air prisons for the unwanted Palestinians. All their policies seem aimed to this end. So we’ll see, within a few years, the appearance of Gaza 2 thru’ however many.
Jabotinsky said zionist colonisation must be carried out in the face of Palestinian resistance with an iron wall which the native population cannot break through, he also said either zionism is moral and just or immoral and unjust, but that is a question we should have asked ourselves before we became zionists, he claimed that zionism is moral and just and since it is moral and just, justice must be done whatever anybody says, there is no other morality. Rather like the exceptionalism of the first American settlers in their attitude to the Indians, ” if we have to kill and ethnically cleanse them, well we don’t want to do it, but its Gods will”. Confronting these people is not going to be easy, but it must be undertaken.
now can we say it?
israel is a state-sponsor of terrorism
I think the juxtaposition is interesting: organizations supporting BDS-may lose tax-exempt status, while organizations organizations supporting ‘Zionist settlement’ will get a tax break.
The U.S. version would be something like: Veterans for Peace lose tax-exempt status, while Swift Boat Veterans for Truth get a tax break.