Changing the Qalqilyus

Planning and zoning battles are usually not the stuff of great drama and rarely make front page news in most Western countries. In Israel, though, when the policy involves a he-said he-said over thousands of housing units planned in a Palestinian West Bank town bordering Israel’s security fence — suddenly town planning is the talk of, um, the town.

Except maybe it’s not. Because even though what happens in Qalqilya currently isn’t staying in Qalqilya and is of interest to ministers and settlers, the papers’ coverage of the issue makes clear that the city is really just beside the point in a larger battle over the heart of the government.

Yedioth sets up the donnybrook between Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in one corner and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and complaining settlers in another.

Long ago, as an intern at a newspaper, this writer once wrote an actual story about a land-use battle using a very extended boxing metaphor and no editor made the effort to stop him. Yedioth, though, chooses a more deadly analogy, and its coverage is replete with words like “war,” “battle,” “attack” and “counterattack” as it goes through the back and forths over whether the cabinet discussed and approved plans for the expansion of the Palestinian city, as Liberman claims, or whether the number of homes to be built were not discussed, as others say.

The paper seems to take the side of Liberman (or truth), running a picture of the cabinet meeting minutes proving that the ministers discussed the plan for some 6,187 homes while being told that there was potential for 14,381.

Haaretz’s main news story on the issue comes out and calls settler claims that 14,000 homes are going to be built “spin” meant to put Netanyahu in a corner over other settlement building projects that have yet to get off the ground.

“Political sources say [Samaria Regional Council head Yossi] Dagan promoted this false claim because several construction requests submitted by the Samaria Regional Council were not even discussed by the Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council when it met two weeks ago, and he was particularly angered that the committee didn’t approve a plan to build a new industrial zone in his jurisdiction. Dagan then pressured Likud ministers Yariv Levin, Miri Regev and others, who rushed to condemn the approval of the 14,000 homes without even checking the data,” the paper reports.

The paper’s lead editorial also tackles the issue, noting that Israelis should be worried after seeing how easily government figures are manipulated by settler figures.

“The ones who have been leading the country by the nose for decades now are the settlers. And their opposition to the plan proves that they are not merely opposed to Palestinian independence, but even to minimal improvements in Palestinian living conditions,” the editorial reads.

But in Yedioth, Shlomo Pyotrkovsky worries that settlers don’t have Netanyahu totally under their spell, linking the issue to a protest in the settlement of Beit El, where a promise for 300 units to replace some destroyed homes has yet to be fulfilled.

“This campaign has very much bothered Netanyahu… and he claimed in his Likud faction meeting that he plans on fulfilling his promise, but refused to set a timeframe. Netanyahu is very bothered, but it seems he’s not bothered enough,” he says.

Israel Hayom, normally a good stand-in for the prime minister’s thinking on the issue, doesn’t tackle the story at all, save for a small item on the bottom of page 19, which is likely as good a sign as any that Netanyahu is under pressure and not happy.

The paper also reports on a legislative effort to re-establish the settlement enterprise in the northern West Bank, 12 years after four settlements were evacuated there, which would likely also be meant to butter up the hard right, but it doesn’t really play up the story the same it did last week, when it quoted a former top IDF officer calling for the same thing.

What the paper does lead off with is news that Donald Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is headed to the region.

On Monday, the enigmatic Kushner finally broke his silence, speaking in public and proving that his voice was not stolen by an undersea witch to gain legs and the love of a presidential princess. But while there is a hubbub around his upcoming visit, it’s still not clear what role he will play in efforts to broker fresh talks, and the papers don’t do much to shed any light on the mystery beyond telegraphing a sense that his involvement means Trump is taking the issue even more seriously.

“The government shifts up a gear in contacts,” Israel Hayom’s headline tells readers, while Haaretz’s story barely even mentions the arrival of Trump’s special envoy Jason Greenblatt.

What two Israel Hayom columnists do say is that it is clear is that things are not looking great for the Palestinians, with Trump taking a different tack from his predecessor.

“In the eyes of the current government, this is just one part of a wider regional effort, which Trump is looking to design and prop up, prioritizing the Saudi track over the Palestinians,” Avraham Ben Tzvi writes.

Meanwhile columnist Eyal Zisser notes that much like Qalqilya (trapped by being bounded on three sides by the security fence) and Netanyahu (trapped by the settlers), Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is also trapped, by Trump’s hate of loser terrorists.

“This time the American approach is totally different. It isn’t presenting pre-claims to Israel but the opposite, it’s the Palestinians that have to prove their willingness and intentions with anything regarding terror,” he writes. “For Trump terror is terror, and support for the families of attackers or paying prisoners’ salaries is not acceptable and needs to stop.”