The Quality-of-Life Settlers

House prices in the center of the country are resulting in more Israelis moving to the West Bank

“We’ve made it to Texas,” the reporter says, standing with a couple looking out over the desert. “Horses, desert.” But also houses. They are in Kfar Eldad, a settlement southeast of Jerusalem, talking about property prices. The couple bought an unbuilt apartment here three years ago that will soon be completed. “Here, in the desert?” the reporter asks incredulously. Today it’s worth NIS2,150,000.

When discussing settlements people often think in terms of security or ideology, while neglecting those who move to the West Bank to improve their quality of life. For them, as the reporter says, “ideology is a secondary consideration.” Explaining his decision further, the man says: “15 or 20 years ago, people bought here for peanuts, and everyone said they were crazy. And now a plot here is worth NIS1,600,000.”

Kfar Eldad (named after the Israeli philosopher and Lehi member Israel Eldad) was founded in 1982 close to Herodium and has religious and secular inhabitants. Administered by the Gush Etzion Regional Council, this small area of settlements (which also includes Avigdor Lieberman’s home of Nokdim, Tekoa, and the illegal outpost of Ma’ale Rekhav’am) is sometimes referred to as ‘East Gush Etzion,’ a strange formulation to disguise the fact that it is separated from the real Gush Etzion by Bethlehem. A sparsely populated area with a few Bedouin communities in the vicinity, it sits at the edge of the Judean Desert.

Next, the reporter travels to Peduel, in the central West Bank, founded in 1984 and described as “Israel’s lookout” by Ariel Sharon. From here you can see all the way from Caesarea to Ashdod, including Ben-Gurion Airport. If in Kfar Eldad you might wonder why a place would be so coveted, here the strategic importance – particularly after October 7 – is undeniable.

Lior Zarberg, an expert in real estate in Judea and Samaria, claims the central West Bank settlements close to the Green Line (around 10 kilometers from Peduel) are part of the “Tel Aviv District.” According to him,

the people here understand where they’re living. On the other hand, there’s no longer the ideology of the 1980s, when people came here each morning thinking about how to take control of the next hilltop…It’s true that Israeli law doesn’t apply here, the sovereign is the head of the Central Command…But in the end the person who buys a home here gets up in the morning for work, travels to Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, or Petah Tikva, and everything’s fine.

October 7 has forced everyone to reevaluate their understanding of where’s safe. Zarberg explains that people living here have a solid understanding of security concerns, and receive IDF protection, while on the other side of the Green Line, places like Bat Hefer (which I wrote about here), face an increasing threat from Palestinians in the West Bank. This echoes the claims after October 7 that the West Bank settlements were better protected than communities in the Gaza Envelope. “If the IDF doesn’t establish itself there like it does here,” Zarberg says, “then maybe the prices will decline.”

Prices in settlements are increasing, albeit not at the same rate as west of the Green Line. In 2019, a 150-square-meter house in Itamar (five kilometers southeast of Nablus) cost NIS1,115,000; today it’s worth NIS1,900,000 – an increase of 65%. A 130-square-meter house in Revava (between Ariel and the Green Line) cost NIS2.5 million in 2019; today it’s worth NIS3.75 million. Finally, a half-dunam plot (just over one tenth of an acre) in Nofim (in the northern West Bank) cost NIS900,000 in 2019, and today is worth NIS1.5 million.

In Kfar Eldad and Peduel the reporter met with religious couples. But she also visited a secular couple in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, who are preparing to cross the Green Line. “Our fear was that it’s a settlement and that there are a lot of religious people there, and we’re secular,” the man says, before his wife adds:

We also checked projects in Kochav Yair, more in our area,” his wife adds, “next to Tzofim [the settlement they’re moving to], but more inside Israel [my italics]. And there it’s impossible to find something. The price is nearly double – the house is smaller but nearly 1.5 million more. So we said – let’s compromise. We’ll live five minutes inside the territories and we’ll have a cheaper house.

For the secular couple from Herzliya, moving to the West Bank is a purely financial choice. Just five minutes inside the territories, but – in their terms – outside Israel. All the quality-of-life settlers are located close to the Green Line, in areas that would almost certainly remain part of Israel in the unlikely event of a two-state solution. In previous negotiations, coming to an agreement on borders was far easier than trickier issues like Jerusalem and refugees. But the uncertainly remains.

Pointing at a map of a real estate firm’s properties in the area, the reporter asks: “I don’t see the Green Line here – did you erase it?” “Exactly,” the agent replies. “The owner has a certain ideology and a desire to settle Judea & Samaria and to get as many people as possible to live there.” The owner, though, doesn’t live in the West Bank. “So it’s an economic ideology, not a political one,” the reporter quips. Ignoring the question, the agent says: “Today between 500,000 and 700,000 people live in Judea and Samaria.” By “people,” he of course means “Jews,” given that over two million Palestinians also live in the West Bank, wittingly or unwittingly providing ammunition to those who argue that the status quo is a form of apartheid. “If tomorrow they all moved to the center of the country, it would mean that the flat you want to buy for three million shekels would increase to around five.”

This gets to the heart of the matter. Israel has the highest birth rate in the Western world, and it will soon be higher than most places outside of Sub-Saharan Africa; at our current rate the population will be close to 25 million by the close of the century. Like anywhere else, people want to live as close to the economic and cultural center of the country as possible, and for many the only way to afford this means moving five minutes “outside Israel,” as the woman from Herzliya described it. While still a far cry from the original settler vision of millions of Jews living in the West Bank, this phenomenon is sure to have an impact moving forward, even if the quality-of-life settlers are only moving to settlements close to the Green Line. In the reporter’s words, “as the housing crisis increases, the Green Line fades.”