Tel Aviv Might Not Be So Expensive After All

Last year, the Economist gave Israel’s second city the dubious distinction of being the most expensive on earth. Yes, admits Dror Marmor, property values are very high, and everyday items tend to cost more—but such figures don’t tell the whole story:

Tel Avivians love to talk about the “vibe” that keeps them in the city, but it’s important to talk about cold economic considerations as well, about the fact that they receive from wealthy, self-satisfied Tel Aviv more than they could receive from any other city in the country. Were they to move to a place like [the remote towns of] Harish or Rosh Ha’ayin, they would certainly save thousands of shekels on rent, but the savings would very quickly be spent fuel and vehicle wear and tear (and that’s without pricing the time lost on the roads, which can never be retrieved).

And indeed, according to the dry data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Tel Aviv is one of the most worthwhile cities for residents, in cost versus return. Average arnona [a municipal property tax paid by renters and owners alike] per person in the city is NIS 1,951 [$594] a year, which compares with NIS 2,131 [$649] per person in neighboring Givatayim and an average of NIS 1,235 [$376] for all Israel’s cities. What tips the balance in Tel Aviv’s favor is undoubtedly municipal spending per person. In Tel Aviv it is NIS 11,981 [$3,650] annually, the highest in the country. The national average is NIS 7,647 [$2,330], and the figure for Givatayim is NIS 7,061 [$2,151]. In other words, every person in Tel Aviv receives almost NIS 10,000 net a year from the municipality.

Read more at Globes

More about: Israeli economy, Tel Aviv

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF