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ensures that 4 percent of Israel's lands will be sold off to the highest bidder. When this happens, the
precedent will be irreversible.

The bill does include several "minor triumphs" for anti-privatization activists. A tiny fraction of the money
from land sales will be set aside for a fund to preserve open spaces. For now at least, sales will be limited to
lands for which detailed construction plans exist. Deals are limited to no more than 16 dunams. And there
is a vague clause stipulating that if a few owners wind up with too much land, the government can force
them to sell. But many critical amendments were rejected: Administratively, membership in the overseeing
Land Authority Board will remain rigged so that government privatizers will dominate environmentalists,
and even the JNF. And in a last-minute rider, the reform now includes agricultural lands - which sets the
stage for speculation, sprawl and strip malls on our country's good and fertile earth.

The real loss, however, involves the extent of the sell-off. The bill states that 800,000 dunams, or 4 percent
of Israel's lands, are to be put on the block. Supporters glibly claim that 4 percent is trivial. It's anything
but. When the deserts of the south are taken out of the equation, along with the nature reserves, forests and
of course the military training grounds, this means an extraordinary percentage of the lands in central Israel
will be up for sale.

The difference between private and public land ownership can easily be demonstrated by comparing the
results of two major past
development controversies. In Haifa,
developers linked up with private
landowners to push through
approval of the seven seaside Carmel
Towers. Because of litigation, only
two of these monstrosities now
block the view and the breeze of the
adjacent neighborhoods, so that a

few wealthy landowners can enjoy Computer-generated image of Haifa sea view with Carmel Towers
their private beach-front perches.
But it is just a question of time before a political constellation revives the original plan and a new wall of
concrete neutralizes more than a kilometer of beach.
The results were different in Nes Tziona, where a vast apartment complex was proposed for the Iris Hills,
one of the last calcareous sandstone (kurkar) hillsides in Israel's center, and home to a remarkable diversity
of disappearing flora. Last year the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by private landowners to break a
stalemate with the Jewish National Fund, which owned much of the land, and force through their building
program.

People around the world, desperately watching their homeland being parceled off, speak wistfully about
the ancient, traditional "land ethic." For six decades, Israel was one of the few countries with the wisdom to
integrate such an axiom into its modern real estate policies. Next week, the elected representatives of the
Third Jewish Commonwealth will be asked to sell out. Ideologically the country will be poorer. The public,
too, will undoubtedly be poorer, enjoying far less of the proceeds from future development and
gentrification on the newly privatized lands. And the Land of Israel - surely it will suffer most of all.

Prof. Alon Tal, of the Blaustein Institutes of Desert Studies at Ben-Gurion University, is a member of the
KKL board and deputy chair of the Green Movement in Israel.