As Annexation Looms, Home Prices Are Climbing in West Bank Settlements

The Jordan Valley settlement of Ma’ale Efraim isn’t exactly prime real estate. The land is arid and rocky, it’s more than an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv—Israel’s job engine—and it’s in the middle of a decades-long conflict that shows no signs of ending. And yet Shlomo Mizrahi, owner of local real estate agency Ad Habait, says property values there have jumped more than a third over the past couple of years as politicians have vowed to permanently claim the land for Israel. “There’s no doubt that the second we started to talk about annexation, it increased interest,” Mizrahi says.

Ma’ale Efraim sits in an area that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pledging to annex, possibly as soon as July 1. Palestinians insist the land—about a third of the Israeli-occupied West Bank—belongs to the state they hope to build, but Israel says it’s strategic territory that it can’t give up. The issue gained renewed relevance in January, when President Trump unveiled what he called a peace plan that greenlighted annexation in return for a commitment from Israel to enter negotiations that could lead to a limited Palestinian state. Although Palestinians rejected the plan as one-sided, Netanyahu signed on to it at a White House ceremony.