A striking aspect of the so-called building freeze in Judea and Samaria that expired last week is that an enormous amount of construction went on throughout the last 10 months. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria were not only building without restrictions, the US, Europe and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf bankrolled much of their construction.
The presumptive purpose of the freeze was to prevent Israel from creating “facts on the ground” that would prejudice the outcome of the so-called peace talks with Fatah. This goal is justified on the basis of the Palestinian misinterpretation of a clause in the 1995 agreement between Israel and the PLO in which they agreed that “neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”
The clause was never intended to refer to construction, and “neither side,” of course, relates to both Israel and the Palestinians.
But since the agreement was signed, while the Palestinian misinterpretation has been widely adopted, only one side has been held to account.
Whereas every Jewish home built since 1995 has evoked a storm of international criticism, the Palestinians have built thousands upon thousands of buildings throughout the areas. They have done so in total disregard for planning and zoning ordinances and even the basic considerations of supply and demand. For instance, a motorist travelling from Jerusalem to Ma’aleh Adumim will pass hundreds of empty five-story buildings in Issawiya and other Arab neighborhoods built for the sole purpose of preventing Israel from connecting the two.
So too, Fatah-appointed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been absolutely clear that the Palestinians are building the new city of Rawabi to “change the status” of Judea and Samaria and prepare the ground for the establishment of a state outside the framework of the negotiations.
As the Binyamin citizens’ committee has warned, the Palestinians chose to locate the new city in the heart of the predominantly Jewish area to undermine the territorial contiguity of the Jewish communities there.
The situation in Judea and Samaria at the end of the moratorium is not what the participants in the global anti-Israel pile-on would have us all believe. We do not have avaricious Jews gobbling up all available land at the expense of the guileless, disenfranchised Palestinians. And what is at stake with the end of the freeze is not the fate of the so-called peace process.
What we have is a situation in which there are two sets of rules – one for Arabs and one for Jews. Not only are Jews not given extraordinary rights, they are being denied what are supposed to be their inviolable rights to their private property. Not only are laws being enforced with great prejudice to the benefit of the Palestinians, they are being enforced with great prejudice against the Jews.
So what is at stake with the end of the freeze is not the fate of a future peace. What is at stake is the principle that Jews can expect minimal protection of their fundamental rights to their property from the Israeli government. And if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu manages to withstand the new tsunami of pressure from the Obama administration to reinstate the abrogation of Jewish rights, he will not be harming peace any more than if he bows to that pressure, he will advance the cause of peace.
A “peace” based on the nullification of Jewish rights is nothing more than a recipe for more war.
If Netanyahu manages to withstand US President Barack Obama’s threats and harangues, all his action will do is maintain a bare minimum of protection for Jewish rights. That is, if he manages to keep his pledge to the Israeli people and not prolong the discriminatory freeze, he will have done the bare minimum to maintain Israel’s commitment to the rule of law and liberal norms.
WHEN WE recognize that the demand for a moratorium on Jewish building is an issue of civil rights and the rule of law rather than an issue of peace, we recognize that the plight of the Jews in Judea and Samaria is little different from the plight of Jews throughout the country. Jews in the Negev, the Galilee and the Golan Heights face discrimination that is little different from that faced by the Jews of Judea and Samaria.
Take the plight of Yehuda Marmor, a third generation rancher in the Lower Galilee community of Yavniel with a herd of 220 cattle. For the past eight years, he and his ranch have been regularly attacked by a gang of Israeli Arab livestock thieves and squatters from the Bashir clan. The clan hails from the Arab villages around Moshav Tzipori some 40 kilometers from Yavniel.
Marmor alleges that he was shot by members of the clan while he was trying to prevent them from stealing his cattle in 2002. Six hours after he testified against them in court, 2,000 dunams of his grazing land were set ablaze. He has suffered from regular theft of his cattle every two to three months for the past eight years. Two years ago, seven kilometers of fences around his grazing land were destroyed.
Marmor has a thick stack of complaints he has filed against the Bashir clan. The police have closed investigations into all of them on the grounds of lack of public interest in the complaints or lack of evidence.
Marmor went to court to get a restraining order against the clan. The police have refused to enforce it.
A walk around Marmor’s ranch shows that his land, which overlooks the Jezreel Valley along the Sea of Galilee, has clear military significance. As Jews like Marmor are increasingly leaving ranching and allowing Arab land thieves to overrun their properties due to lack of police protection or court enforcement of their rights, the need to defend those who remain expands by the day. Marmor is able to continue ranching due to the efforts of the volunteers from the New Israeli Guardsmen, a voluntary organization established three years ago by the sons of farmers and ranchers who banded together to protect their parents’ livelihoods and lives in the face of police paralysis.
Or take Ilan Milles from Neveh Atib in the northern Golan Heights. For seven years, he worked to realize his dream of building a farmers’ market at the entrance to the Mount Hermon National Park.
Milles received all the permits and licenses, raised the money and was all set to begin work earlier this year. But before his contractor could begin the job, the pro-yrian Druse from neighboring villages decided they wanted the project for themselves.
So they threatened the contractor.
After repeated attempts to reach an accommodation with the Druse failed, Milles asked Regavim, a nonprofit group that lobbies government bodies to protect Jewish land rights, for help.
Regavim convinced the relevant ministries to permit him to move ahead with construction. Everything was set to go in May. But then, the police intervened.
Claiming that beginning construction would endanger the lives of construction workers, the police slapped a no work order on Milles the night before he was scheduled to break ground.
Regavim petitioned the High Court to force the police to protect Milles’s property
rights. This month the court ruled in his favor and construction is set to begin on November 1. Whether this is the end of the story is anyone’s guess.
rights. This month the court ruled in his favor and construction is set to begin on November 1. Whether this is the end of the story is anyone’s guess.
The court’s decision is a welcome departure from its general practice. In its 2004 landmark ruling in the Ka’adan case, the court ruled that the state may not discriminate against Arabs in leasing land. This put an end to the establishment of Jewish communities throughout the Jewish state.
The ruling might have been justifiable on liberal grounds if it were applied across the board. However, it does not apply to Arabs.
The state continues to issue tenders for land leases to Arabs only. While the state actively develops Arab-only communities in the Negev and Galilee, Jews are barred from building Jewish communities even on lands owned by the Jewish National Fund – a private trust which is bound by its charter to only develop its lands for Jewish settlement.
When the non-enforcement of the criminal code against Arab livestock rustlers, land squatters, illegal builders and tax evaders is brought into the equation, we have a situation nationwide where there are two sets of rules: one for Jews and one for Arabs. Jews are denied their basic property rights and protection under the law, while Arabs are not only protected, they are immune from prosecution if they fail to abide by the law of the land.
The most bizarre and glaring example of this is the situation in Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, otherwise known as Sheikh Jarrah. There, every Friday self-proclaimed liberals stage violent riots with local Arabs to try to transform the area into a Jew-free zone.
The Jews who live there are not illegal squatters. They are the lawful owners of their properties who fought in the courts for years to have their ownership rights vindicated. What we see in Shimon Hatzadik every Friday are not peaceful demonstrations in favor of a discriminated against Arab minority. They are organized, violent assaults on the very notion of the rule of law. And these assaults are undertaken by a consortium of Arabs and leftist radicals who believe that Jews have no civil rights because they are Jews.
Facing these rioters is a Jerusalem municipality that is still smarting from the Obama administration’s unprecedented assault last spring. That attack was precipitated by the Jerusalem planning board’s decision to approve the construction of housing units in a Jewish neighborhood.
Today Mayor Nir Barkat is ignoring court orders to destroy dozens of illegal Arab buildings in eastern Jerusalem out of fear of the international outcry that would ensue.
The lesson of all of this is clear enough. As Israel faces the ire of the international hanging jury for refusing to reinstate the prohibition on Jewish building in Judea and Samaria, our citizens and our leaders need to make a decision.
Will we take the necessary steps to protect and strengthen our liberal democracy and guarantee that Israel is a place where the rule of law is defended and the principle of equality before the law is upheld? Or will we bow to international pressure and allow the Jewish state to become an illiberal democracy-in-name-only where the rights of Jews are systematically denied?
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
What a mess. Volunteer groups and non-profit organisations stepping in and doing work the Israeli police, judiciary and government bodies won’t. Jewish farmers, settlers, youth and volunteers who stand and claim their right to the Jewish homeland, to earn a living on Jewish soil, who refuse to be cowed and go, year after year…they have that spirit you wrote about in a recent article, Caroline. I fervently hope the Israeli leadership take a leaf out of their book.
What happened to the pride and courage that our pioneers showed in the building of the Jewish Homeland. Despite almost insurmountable odds and sometimes with nothing more than “sticks and stones” we fought and we won. Why have we become so afraid of world condemnation? We Jews have always been the scapegoats for all the evil that men do. Bowing to world pressure only reinforces our “guilt” and disrespect from our enemies. It’s time for us to reclaim our strength and the sanctity of our Jewish home before it is too late.
Caroline,
It’s much worse than you are saying.
Israel not having learned from history is repeating bad,bad history again.
“You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods.
“They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
Exodus 23
Going along with the two month extension of the Freeze will make it permanent and what comes next is even more dire.
The problem is Israel is led by grasshoppers.
What has happened under Israel’s allegiance to her destroyer and their fakepeace Road Map is Judenrein in the land of the Jews.That is the Road Map most of Israel has signed onto instead of obeying the words of the Holy One of Israel. Did you really think this would turn out well by yeilding to the will of Washington and ignoring His clear command ?
Who could imagine that Jews were capable of this evil against fellow Jews so soon after the ethnic cleansing of the other Shoah ?
The qusling and godless Jewish government is so eager to please their master that they assist in the destruction of Israel knowing that is the DESIRED final outcome of the peace process.
They betray those most loyal and obedient to the God of Israel’s command to build and rebuild on their land..That is treachery and this evil will invoke the wrath of God against them.Everything but peace comes to the little grasshoppers of Israel.
Shall the latest generation of Jewish grasshoppers (all who go along with the two state final solution) who betray God and abuse His small flock not meet with the same end as their early ancestors ?
We are judged by your actions and those who help to plant the jihad hordes in His land while restricting the rightful Jewish building and growth are His enemies and will see His great wrath against them Mr Netanyahu. Grasshoppers in Israel do not have a future.
WHERE ARE THE JOSHUA’S & CALEB’S TO LEAD ?
“Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.”
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”
So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.
33″There also we saw the Nephilim and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Numbers 13
Regretfully a tragedy of national proportions which was initially triggered in Oslo but that has been followed by all governments since then.
Mr. Netanyahu has sorely hurt us all, his agile talking ability notwhitstanding and that is at the core of our never ending self inflicted harm.
New leadership, including yourself Caroline is a must.
why did you end the column with a question after spending all the preceeding space developing the argument that lays out that you have two enemies. you win so now what?
The sanctity of ‘rule of law’ is under assault not only in Israel but also in the United States and in Europe.
Rule of law is the foundation of western civilization, our peace, and our prosperity.
Abandoning this important principle will hve far-reaching consequences. Civil disorder is one such consequence.
You talk as if we had a future as a sovereign Jewish state. I doubt very much if we do.
Our politicians will be the end of us – who for even one minute deludes themselves into thinking our gov’t. will protect us?
Those who can, if they’re smart, will leave before the end. If I’d known what I know now about this country, I would have made aliyah to Australia or New Zealand. And don’t think for a minute I’m an isolated case, I hear this from most of my friends, both olim & Israeli. You know what? The politicians & the oligarchs who exploit the hell out of us can stay here with the Arabs.
As the leaders who stand for nothing and only believe in the diktats of bullies and their sacrifice of Israel to the Islamic hordes under the guise of peace continue to oppress fellow Jews, price tags,blowback and other surprises will continue to grow and spiral out of control.
Not all Jews are willing to obey the kapo’s and go silently to their end.
This will cause the traitors in government to be more harsh against them then they have been against the Islamic terrorists.
They had better wise up sooner than later. The days of blind loyalty to the superpower who has thrown Israel off the cliff are long over.
We have one cowardly Israeli government after another who continue to be fearful of disobeying their god of destruction in Washington.
So they continue to reward Islamic terrorism and deliver shekles,fuel,food,goods and goodwill gestures to those intent on destroying the nation.
It is evident that terrorism pays well.
So why is anyone surprised if Jews tired of being abused by the state for building homes turn to a more profitable enterprise ?
It’s only a matter of time before the quisling Israeli government surrenders land to them also.
The failed Israeli leadership have no one to blame but their own selves.
It is time to face the truth.
Violation of Jewish rights in Israel has been going on for decades and EACH GOVERNMENT, whose responsibility includes setting policy and enforcing it, has been an active agent in empowering the Arabs at the expense of the Jews. Sometimes by design, sometimes by default.
On the other hand, victimized Jews fail to organize themselves nationally and independently from useless political parties.
Right now there should be a non-partisan organization dedicated to stopping the partition of the country.
And there should be another to financially assist those who challenge their unequal treatment by police.
You may remember the case of Shai Dromi, a Negev sheep farmer who, when attacked, shot one of several criminals who had repeatedly stolen his property and poisoned his dogs. Police lay charges of murder at first, then in face of widespread criticism, a charge of manslaughter. But he had so much national support that he was acquitted and eventually the law was changed in favor of self-defense by Jewish farmers.
That’s what is really missing now, Caroline. A passionate defense of Jewish rights – EVERY DAY.
Any regular reader of Israel National News is aware of daily violations of Jewish rights in all aspects of life.
The PRO-ARAB BIAS by government, courts, police, etc., IS NOT DUE TO US PRESSURE.
It is due to the leftists’ strong grip on government, courts, and in just about every institution that matters in the country.
Let’s not forget that PM Netanyahu himself named Labor Ehud Barak as Defense minister.
We should stop making excuses for the government.
The only reason why the PM has not willingly outdone Kadima in the extent of concessions to the PA is due to mild rebukes by some of his coalition partners. But it’s only a matter of time till Likud completely buckles and accepts Netanyahu’s plan with only a fig leaf of some kind or other to save face.
Caroline asks at the end of her column “will we BOW TO INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE and allow the Jewish state to become an illiberal democracy-in-name-only where the rights of Jews are systematically denied?”
There is international pressure, all right, but THE MAIN CAUSE of this situation is the way the left runs the country – and the way CITIZENS ALLOW THEM to do so.
If the people continue to be SO DIVIDED AND LACKING IN ORGANIZATION, the left will continue to run their lives.
People must stop blaming Obama for everything and point the finger at those in charge at home – and also at the sense of helplessness among citizens that allows this situation to go on to its tragic end.
It’s your country, Israelis. Knesset members should work for you. You pay their salaries. Obama has no moral or political authority to force you to do anything. He can pressure but he can’t force you. It’s time for Israelis to take charge.
‘but THE MAIN CAUSE of this situation is the way the left runs the country’
Last time I checked,a hard right wing Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled Israel.
Of course some of us know that like Obama,Netanyahu is only a puppet of the globalists serving their agenda and not Israel’s.
He can’t say no to his boss,they’ll fire him and replace him with Livni or another lap dog in waiting.
How does a tiny,fearful,outnumbered country like Israel say no to a BULLY superpower empire when it threatens and pressures it to do as it is told or else,Amy ?
Without faith in God Israel cannot say no to those who destroy her by the peace process.
Stop electin g secular defeatist losers and liars who serve the final solution agenda of the Globalists