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After more than 20 years, new Jewish town in Lower Galilee finally receives government approval

Ramat Arbel, near the Sea of Galilee, will be built on the same spot as a Second Temple-era town.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The government approved the establishment of a new settlement in the Lower Galilee in its weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted at the meeting that the nascent village of Ramat Arbel is located where a settlement existed in the era of the Second Temple. He called the decision “a holiday for the State of Israel and the pioneer families; it’s very important news for the Jewish settlement [movement].”

The village will be located several kilometers northwest of Tiberias near the Sea of Galilee. For the last year, a handful of young families has been living in temporary housing on the site, which was designated as an “illegal outpost” and partially destroyed last December by Israeli forces.

They had acted on a complaint filed by the neighboring Israeli Arab council of Ilbon that alleged that the residents are “seeking to take over the land” of its own residents.

Ramat Arbel had originally been approved for construction in a 2002 government decision. In 2013 it was rejected by the National Planning and Construction Council because there were allegedly thousands of unoccupied housing units in already existing settlements in the region, which is no longer the case.

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In a visit last week to the site, Minister of the Negev and Galilee and National Resilience Yitzhak Wasserlauf thanked the families for their “self-sacrifice for a full year, remaining there 24/7 and not giving up or giving in.”

Standing in front of a hand-painted “Welcome” sign, he added, “We are saying the Land of Israel is ours, we came to settle it, we came to make the wasteland bloom, and with this government decision, this will be the first step towards the establishment of dozens more settlements in the Negev and the Galilee.”

The establishment of the settlement had been included in the coalition agreement between the Likud and right-wing national religious parties Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism.

Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf of the ultra-Orthodox UTJ party also took part of the credit Sunday, saying that Ramat Arbel is “the fourth settlement that the new government is promoting under the leadership” of his ministry.

He noted the three benefits of the Cabinet decision as increasing the housing supply in the country, lowering home prices, and “strengthening Jewish settlement in the Galilee” specifically, where the number of Arabs far outstrips the number of Jews.

Lower Galilee Regional Council head Nitzan Peleg echoed the last point in his response to the government’s announcement, saying, “I welcome the government’s decision to allocate resources for the planning of the settlement of Ramat Arbel as part of our general perception of the need to expand Jewish settlement in the Galilee. We will aid in locating state lands near the settlement that is already de facto there” and “lead a steering team to plan the settlement” with the relevant ministries.

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Millions of shekels will now be budgeted for the planning and construction of the village, which is reportedly slated for some 500 families. Minister of Immigration and Absorption Ofir Sofer (Religious Zionism) said that the village “will be geared towards absorbing immigrant families.”

In a celebratory tweet, his party colleague, Minister of National Missions Orit Strock, wrote that “We are stopping the years-long deterioration in the Galilee and promoting a settlement boom that will boost the region and make it flourish. Because you get what you vote for.”