Activists erect 'Justice Tower' for affordable homes

Social justice protesters vow not to leave building near Kibbutz Yakum in Sharon region until solution to cost of housing.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Protesters block streets in Jerusalem 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Protesters block streets in Jerusalem 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Social justice activists campaigning for affordable housing built an illegal tower and fence on state land near Kibbutz Yakum, near Netanya, to draw attention to their cause.
The activists, part of the Social Coalition group, said it took them no more than four hours from Monday evening to early Tuesday morning to set up the compound, and dubbed the tallest structure “the tower of justice.”
The activists are calling on the government to take immediate action to reverse continuously growing housing prices, which have risen by 70 percent over the past decade, and are preventing young families from buying properties.
The activists said they were inspired by the tower and fence construction efforts of Jewish pioneers in the land of Israel during the pre-state era of the 1930s, who took advantage of British imperial regulations to set up enough structures in order to avoid demolition the following day.
“We won’t leave this land until change comes,” Jacky Edri, one of the activists, told Ma’ariv. “We defeated the White Paper of the British in the 1930s and we’ll defeat the Black Paper of the government today,” he added.
The activists are demanding that the state return the three billion shekels invested in the Public Housing Law, which they say has failed to achieve affordable housing.