You can't just shave
five buildings off a community, remove them as though they were a
diseased tumor and relocate them. Behind these five buildings lies an
entire settlement enterprise whose enemies — some of them our own Jewish
brothers — pray for its destruction. These enemies of the settlement
enterprise realize that the majority of the population supports the
settlers, even if the media uniformly doesn't. That is why they employ
dozens of human rights organizations (a code name for organizations that
strip Jews of their right to live in their country) and wield the
swords of the High Court of Justice and the State Prosecutor's Office.
Pretty
soon, following their "success" in destroying the Ulpana neighborhood of
Beit El (the High Court of Justice ruled that five of its building had
been built on privately owned Palestinian land and must therefore be
demolished by the end of the month), the people of B'Tselem, Peace Now
and the New Israel Fund will find more private "owners" of dozens of
neighborhoods and communities in Judea and Samaria, and obviously demand
their demolition.
Everyone knows that the
land in question was a rocky plot of land on which nothing had ever
been built or grown before the settlers came. The purported Palestinian
"ownership" of the land refers to a last-minute Jordanian record from
the early 1960s, reflecting the Jordanian effort to prevent uprisings by
bribing clan leaders and mukhtars (village heads) with lands.
It is also a well-known
fact that these lands — which were liberated from the Palestinians and
paid for in full — could not have been registered with the Israel Land
Administration because the Palestinian leadership threatened anyone who
sold land to Jews with death.
Another well-known fact
is that even Jordanian law stipulates that when the value of
construction and crops on a plot of land exceed the value of the land
itself, then the owner must be compensated and that which was built or
grown must remain intact.
Furthermore, unlike any
other legal proceeding, the residents of the Ulpana homes in question
were not given the opportunity to present their case in court and have
had no say in the debate over the destruction of their homes.
The argument that the
outpost arrangement bill (which aims to retroactively authorize the
construction of the disputed buildings while compensating the original
owners) is on a collision course with the High Court of Justice is a
propagandist lie. The job of the High Court of Justice is to enforce the
rule of law, which originates in the legislative branch of government.
If the Knesset can't legislate a law that protects our natural, historic
and religious right to the land that is the cradle of our nationhood —
the very justification for our return to this country — then by all
means, let us relocate the Knesset building to the Supreme Court parking
lot.
The so-called "rule of
law" is an Orwellian term suggesting contempt for popular rule. It is
precisely the Jewish settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria that
reflects the true spirit of rule of law, because it is the reason, among
others, and the goal that the current coalition was elected to achieve.
The outpost arrangement bill is somewhat of a lesser evil, but it could
also resolve the problem, and provide the settlement enterprise with a
legal umbrella while compensating the land owners, who, even if they
won't admit it publicly, would be much happier to receive generous
compensation than a plot of land they will never use. The government,
for its part, should inform the court that its initial ruling was
mistaken and allow the residents to defend their property in court.
A bloody debate has
raged in present-day Israel between proponents of the settlement
enterprise and its opponents, but the current government is nearly
unanimous on the issue. So how is it that a conservative government, led
by Likud, is once again uprooting communities? Let us recall that the
Likud already fell apart once, to the joy of the media and the Left, and
gave birth to Kadima, a political mutation that facilitated the
destruction of the Jewish communities in Gaza and brought two pointless
wars upon us.
Without realizing it,
we have grown accustomed to the demolition of Jewish homes, here a
house, there a street, and finally an entire enterprise. Remember Gush
Katif? That cannot be allowed to happen again. There are moments in
history when a certain act deviates far beyond its physical bounds. It
is not five buildings that are going to be demolished in the Ulpana
neighborhood. What will ultimately be destroyed is the very principle of
standing up to protect our simple, natural right — which has been
upheld by the Law of Nations, by morality and by history — to settle our
homeland. This principle allows us to defend ourselves from the Iranian
threat, and the European economic threat that wants to drown us. It is
not too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment