Gov’t To Ease Housing Crisis With Homes Of Leftists Who Vowed To Leave If Bibi Won

Everyone knows that Labor and Meretz voters have the most personal integrity, and when they said they’re going to leave if Bibi is reelected, that means they intend to follow through.

Jerusalem, April 15 – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s incoming government intends to alleviate the pressing shortage of housing in the coming months by making use of the myriad now-empty residences vacated by left-wing voters who swore they would emigrate if Likud won the elections, a spokesman said today.

A representative for the Prime Minister’s Office told reporters of the plan as he answered questions about negotiations to form a coalition. Despite tensions between Kulanu and Shas over which party would be granted control of the Israel Land Administration under the coalition agreements, a key element in each one’s campaign promise to address the affordable housing crisis, leaders of both parties agreed that repurposing the abandoned homes as low- and mid-cost housing should form a major component of government policy. Estimates of the number of housing units made newly available range from 7,000 to 50,000, but even at the lower end of that range the figures represent a promising start to addressing the issue.

Additionally, say those leaders, the use of the left-wing voters’ abandoned homes in and near Tel Aviv has the potential to narrow some of the society’s economic gaps, notably the shortage of affordable living space in and around the country’s commercial and industrial heartland. “Geographic mobility is key for families who until now could only afford to live in peripheral areas,” explained Kulanu chairman Moshe Kahlon. “While it is also important to create opportunities in the depressed periphery, we must nevertheless acknowledge the centrality of Gush Dan in the Israeli economy and the crucial nature of better access to it,” he said, referring to the area by its Biblical pedigree as originally allotted to the tribe of Dan.

Shas leader Arye Deri concurred. “Whoever ends up with the Land Administration, the first move is a no-brainer. Everyone knows that Labor and Meretz voters have the most personal integrity, and when they said they’re going to leave if Bibi is reelected, that means they intend to follow through,” he said. “Now that he’s won, we must move quickly to make those apartments and houses available to young couples and families.”

Families are not the only groups anticipating an opportunity from the impending departure of so many Tel Aviv residents. Airlines that fly to Europe expect a windfall this summer as legions of vocal, disappointed leftists get their affairs in order and purchase one-way tickets to Berlin, says travel industry consultant Tzvi Oot. “The people who boldly vowed to emigrate elsewhere did so partly out of a sense that such a statement would spur others to prevent their departure – that their presence in Israel was important enough, in economic, political and cultural terms, to dictate other’s voting choices,” he noted. “Those are obviously people of means, the type of customer airlines would love to serve, and carriers such as Lufthansa and Air France are preparing for a veritable onslaught of those influential movers and shakers. It could provide a significant boost to the bottom lines of the increasingly thin-margin airline industry.”

Even if those who voiced intent to leave in the event of a Likud victory did so only as an expression of frustration, and not of polemics, says Oot, they still represent desirable airline customers. “Anyone who can seriously consider picking up and reestablishing himself anywhere must already have the resources to do so,” he explained.

“They just might end up fighting over chocolate on the flight out.”