Finance Ministry Moshe Kahlon, leader of the coalition Kulanu party, says he pressured Prime Minister Netanyahu to resume construction of apartments for Jews in East Jerusalem.
“We have no choice now but to build a lot,” Kahlon, speaking at a Kulanu faction meeting, says he told Netanyahu over the weekend.
The government approved new construction in several settlements in response to terror attacks last week that killed two Israelis in the West Bank — a man and a teenage girl. Jerusalem, however, did not receive new construction permits.
“There is a single goal to murdering a girl in her sleep and to firing on passing vehicles — sowing terror and fear and causing people to leave their homes,” says Kahlon, who is considered a relative moderate when it comes to the Palestinians. “It is important that we make it clear to the murderers that the future of the settlements in Judea and Samaria will be determined through negotiations.”
His statement was also apparently a reference to a decision to construct 600 apartments in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa, which has garnered criticism from multiple ministers in the cabinet.
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