We all know the story of how early colonialists purchased Manhattan from the Indians for about $24.
Other great land purchases include the Louisiana Purchase, for $15,000,000 from France and the Alaska Purchase from Russia for $7,200,000. Of course there are some biblical purchases as well, such as Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpela, King David bought the area of Temple Mount to build an altar, Yaakov bought Schchem..
I don't know if Bet El will go down in history as one of the greatest land purchases ever, but the idea has come up as a possible solution in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
We, the Israelis led by PM Netanyahu, want and expect to keep in our hands, in the event of a peace agreement in which land from Samaria is given to the Palestinians, blocs of Jewish towns and villages (a.k.a. "settlements"). One of those blocs would be the bloc of Bet El - the city and the towns in the area. Part of the proposal, as recently revealed, is that Neyanyahu is offering to pay for keeping the bloc of land.
NRG says it is not clear at this point whether the Bet El Purchase would be a straight-out purchase or a long-term land lease, but there is an offer of some sort of purchase. This is different than other blocs that are under discussion of land-swaps - Bet El would be comprised of both a land swap and a monetary purchase.
The Americans and Jordanians have supposedly confirmed the proposal, though it has not yet been passed along to the Palestinians.
Somehow I don't think Bet El will be as cheap as Manhattan, but almost nothing else ever has been...
Religion Magazine
