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A little neighborhood, a whole world of trouble
Vice Prime Minister
Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon has over the years taken the moral high ground on
public matters. I do not share Ehud Barak's view that Bogie holds
"Feiglinist" convictions (referring to hard-line Likud figure Moshe
Feiglin). Even Ya'alon's desire to unseat Barak as defense minister is
defensible. This is what politics is all about after all.
Still, on the issue of
Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood, Ya'alon has jumped the gun. The way he
sees it, the government's dissolution is preferable to an evacuation of
the Ulpana neighborhood and having its land returned to its rightful
Palestinians owners. Such a mind-set goes too far. It is unbecoming of a
senior cabinet minister to put the coalition's stability on an equal
footing with a Beit El neighborhood.
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The
facts surrounding the unsanctioned construction of the new neighborhood
in Beit El and in its proximity to the large settlement make this case a
tough nut to crack. This is abundantly clear to anyone willing to delve
into the details. Some in Beit El acted recklessly by not putting an
end to the construction of two structures outside the designated
residential area, carried out in violation of a High Court of Justice
ruling; at this point, given that the structures are still vacant,
demolishing them would be the right thing to do. One must also ask why
the local council, which has the obligation to inform its residents of
both their rights and their duties, did not step in on time.
On the main bone of
contention, the Ulpana neighborhood, the saber-rattling on the part of
cabinet ministers has nothing to do with the settlement issue and has
everything to do with who will get to be the next minister of defense;
it is a popularity contest within the Likud befitting the primary
election fever that the party as a whole has caught. The supremacy of
the law must be preserved; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows all
about it, probably more than anyone else -- he routinely has to answer
complaints and reports from the West over illegal settlement activity on
private property in Judea and Samaria.
But the law does allow
some wiggle room; those well-versed in the details know this. Zoning
plans from the 1980s and the 1990s that have been all-but discarded
could untie this knot. Beit El also has about five acres of state-owned
land that have not been developed, and they can serve as a viable
alternative for the would-be evacuees. And if the High Court of Justice
receives a well-written request this week, it might issue a prolonged
stay on the evacuation order to allow the proper transition, so long as a
valid case is made.
This battle will end in
a compromise. Knesset legislation to bypass the court -- an
anti-democratic move -- will not save the day this time around. While
some politicos are itching for a fight, they will just have to wait for
the next round. It would be inconceivable to fight a civil war over a
neighborhood the majority of whose residents have called it home for
many years with the backing of the government or its tacit endorsement
(or so they thought, in their naivete).
"War is not an adventure. It is a
disease," the author of "The Little Prince," Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
once famously observed. This applies to civil wars, too.
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