Tag: Palestinian Authority

Battle for Area C
י"ח תמוז התשפ"ב - 17 July 2022
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A map that outlines one of six masterplans that will compromise Israeli national interests

Thousands of dunams for expansion and construction – on land that will cut off Jewish communities from Jerusalem: Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria express outrage at the announcement of permits for Palestinian Arab construction as a gesture to welcome President Biden. Regavim: “This is a fatal blow to Jewish settlement and to Israeli democracy.”

As part of a package of “good will gestures” honoring honoring US President Biden upon his visit to Israel, the Israeli government will approve 6 masterplans for Palestinian settlements in Judea and Samaria. These plans will result in de facto Palestinian annexation of large sections of Area C – the portion of Judea and Samaria under full Israeli jurisdiction. They include “legalization” of hundreds of illegally-built structures and expansion of Arab villages, isolating and choking existing Jewish communities and threatening the security and feasibility of the entire settlement enterprise. 

The plans will reward the Palestinian Authority’s continued efforts to create facts on the ground, and encourage the continued implementation of the Fayyad Plan of territorial takeover using precise placement of illegal construction and agricultural projects.

The Arab village of Batir, located between Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood and Gush Etzion, will be granted a permit for no less than 518 illegal structures as well as expansion of the village by some 3000 dunams – an area comparable in size to the city of Ariel. The plan will effectively cut off Gush Etzion from Jerusalem and severely compromise the security of the Gush Etzion-Jerusalem Tunnel Road.

Another plan, in Eastern Gush Etzion, will approve the expansion of Kisan by 615 dunams, severely limiting access for Jewish communities of eastern Gush Etzion and any possibility for future growth. Similar plans for the village of Pakiks will cut off the Jewish community of Negohot in the South Hebron Hills area.

Approval of Municipal Masterplans (Tab”a) are also planned in Binyamin and Shomron, including a plan that jeopardizes the very heart of Samaria, near Highway 5 between Ariel and Revava.  Another plan up for approval is Hizme, adjacent to Jerusalem’s Pisgat Zeev neighborhood, where expansion by hundreds of dunams will bring the village even closer to Israel’s capital.

“This is a catastrophe that must be averted – immediately,” says Meir Deutsch, Director General of Regavim. “Saar, Shaked, Kahana, Elkin, Hendel, Orbach – you were elected on right-wing votes because you promised to protect the Jewish settlement enterprise. You handed Yair Lapid his seat in the Prime Minister’s office, and you are the reason Benny Gantz is Minister of Defense. It is your responsibility to block this insane plan to whitewash thousands of illegal structures that will cut off Jewish settlement blocs from Jerusalem and give permanence to the criminal Palestinian takeover of Area C.”

Foreign interference in Israel
י"א תמוז התשפ"ב - 10 July 2022
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A senior Canadian military officer seen visiting an illegal Palestinian structure

In recent weeks, we’ve noticed a delegation of senior Canadian military personnel that has been patrolling in uniform in Area C, including at an illegal structure in the South Hebron Hills region.

The delegation was also hosted by the IDF’s Central Command General Yehuda Fuchs, meaning that its presence in the area is known to and sanctioned by IDF officials.

The illegal structure that the Canadians visited was erected overnight on land designated for agriculture and belongs to the nearby Israeli community of Maon. Residents of Maon appealed to the IDF and the Civil Administration to stop the work and demolish the building. Apparently, the Civil Administration has pledged to enforce the law but has done nothing so far.

Canadian delegation inspects an illegal construction site in the South Hebron Hills
Canadian army general stands next to Palestinians in Area C

Shortly after the referral to the Civil Administration, the visit of the Canadian delegation, which included two uniformed military personnel, was documented.

The delegation was also documented during a visit to the village of Zurif near the community of Carmi Tzur in Gush Etzion, and this week they were seen again in a meeting with Arabs near the village of Kisan in eastern Gush Etzion, also in Area C.

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It’s an utterly insane and blatantly rude move against the State of Israel for senior military figures from a foreign country to encourage construction criminals who are acting under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority.

As long as the State of Israel sees itself as a guest in Judea and Samaria and does not conduct itself as the sovereign, the rest of the world will also see the State of Israel as a guest and not as the legitimate sovereign.

Battle for Area C
ח' תמוז התשפ"ב - 07 July 2022
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Don’t sell us out!
Israel’s security and sovereignty aren’t bargaining chips!

President Biden: Don’t exploit Israel’s unstable political landscape to extract historic concessions from an interim government that may be tempted to pay an enormously high price to shore up their election prospects.

Prime Minister Lapid: Don’t sell out our national interests for photo-ops with visitng dignitaries who have agendas of their own.

The itinerary of President Biden’s visit, scheduled for 13-15 July, includes several things that are tremendously problematic for Israel’s sovereignty and security:

  • A first-of-its-kind visit by a US President to East Jerusalem without any Israeli presence or accompaniment, signaling that our capital is divided between two independent sovereigns, constituting a substantive violation of US law, Israeli law and diplomatic protocol;
  • Solidifying Israeli agreement to a Palestinian Authority presence at the Allenby Border Crossing, signaling joint sovereignty and authority over our border and the secession of our our control and sovereignty over the Jordan Valley;
  • Official recognition of the upgraded status of the Palestinian Affairs Office as a de facto embassy to Palestine in West Jerusalem, with an eye towards opening a full embassy in the East Jerusalem consular building, shut down by the Trump Administration.

Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley are Israel’s most vital existential interests.

They’re not for sale.

"Masafer Yatta"
ד' תמוז התשפ"ב - 03 July 2022
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The Masafer Yatta case illustrates how leftist propaganda manipulates the kind hearts and good intentions of people in Israel and around the world.

It’s a whale of a tale that has enabled anti-Israel organizations, foreign governments and the Palestinian Authority to turn run-of-the mill illegal construction into a massive international issue. It also illustrates that although “better late than never” might work in some situations – in others, if you miss the boat, the ship sails on and you’re left to swim against the tide and battle the sharks on your own.

The area referred to as Masafer Yatta is state land, which was declared a military training ground in the early 1980s. Like all state lands set aside for military use, there was not, nor had there been in over 100 years, settlement of any kind on the land in question – no private property, no historic villages, nothing. This is a desert area, very difficult terrain, with no water or arable land. During the Ottoman era it was classified as mawat – “dead” – and owned by the sultan (in other words, by the state); the same classification carried through the Mandatory era and the Jordanian occupation. Mandate-era maps (below, 1935) show some archaeological ruins in the area, but no settlement of any kind. By comparison, the map shows Yatta and Hebron, Bani Naim and other villages that were real, actual settlements during the same period. “Masafer Yatta” was desolate.

A map from the British Mandate era (1935) shows a desolate Masafer Yatta area

Aerial photos from as recently as 1997 make this point unequivocally – but they aren’t really necessary: The “proof” offered to the High Court of Justice by the Arab plaintiffs in the Masafer Yatta case actually disproves their claims. The recent High Court decision lists some of the more egregious examples that prove unequivocally that the residents of the illegal “villages” of Masafer Yatta arrived after the IDF closed off the area for military use. It also proves that these residents, almost without exception, have permanent homes in the nearby town of Yatta.

How were these “villages” born? The shepherds of Yatta would sleep in caves in nearby grazing areas, rather than trekking back to the village each night. After the IDF closed off the area, the shepherds were permitted to continue grazing their flocks there; the IDF gave them a few days’ warning before live-fire exercises to insure that no one got hurt. The Palestinian Authority seized the opportunity – and began funding construction of permanent structures. Foreign interests jumped right in after them, funding infrastructure projects to support the “indigenous farmers” – laying water and electricity lines that enabled more and more people to set up homesteads on the “free” land. This pattern, repeated all through the area, was exposed in the High Court of Justice – by the plaintiffs themselves!

The first petitions regarding Masafer Yatta were filed over 20 years ago by leftist organizations that tried to wrest control of the area out of the State’s hands. Temporary injunctions weren’t merely ignored, they were trampled – but instead of immediately tearing down the few structures that had popped up in the firing zone, the IDF kept pulling back, limiting the area it used for training, to avoid harming the squatters. What started off as a few structures in three specified areas metastasized into hundreds of structures, many hundreds of residents, and a brand new fake-news international humanitarian crisis. A full two decades passed before the High Court finally asserted what had been clear from the start: The Arab claims to this land are unfounded, and the claim that Israel is dispossessing indigenous people is a lie.

Battle for Area C
י"ג סיון התשפ"ב - 12 June 2022
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The Emergency Regulations Law in Judea and Samaria was passed today by the government, but still needs to be brought back to the Knesset plenum. This ongoing saga exposes the decades-long failure of Israeli governments to formulate policy for Judea and Samaria.

Last week, the Knesset plenum voted down what has been a standard piece of legislation for some five decades. The first reading of the bill to extend emergency regulations in Judea and Samaria for another five years failed to pass, for the first time since 1967: 52 MKs voted in favor, 58 opposed.

The emergency regulations apply Israeli law to citizens living in Judea and Samaria, and mainly concern the powers of Israel’s judiciary and executive branches regarding Israelis who have committed crimes in Judea and Samaria, including areas under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. These regulations make it possible for Israel to carry out orders and enforce punishments on Israeli citizens and creates a framework for legal cooperation between Israel and the relevant arms of the Palestinian Authority.

The emergency regulations will expire at the end of this month, which may complicate matters for law enforcement authorities as well as for the residents of Judea and Samaria. In the opinion of the Deputy Attorney General, “This will create legal and practical difficulties in conducting complex or joint investigations, which is a significant factor and a vital element of the powers vested in the Military Governor, impacting governance of the area and maintenance of public order and security.”

The real story here is the ongoing failure of Israeli governments to formulate policy, to articulate a national vision, and to demonstrate governance. The only thing that has prevented Israeli governments since 1967 from applying Israeli law in Judea and Samaria is their own reticence – actually, their timidity. This has led to a chaotic reality that harms the security and quality of life of the residents of Judea and Samaria, Jews and Arabs alike, and the security of the State of Israel as a whole.

These regulations deal mainly with criminal law and civil rights. The various technical clauses reveal the official policy of the State of Israel to criminality in Judea and Samaria, but what they do not include may be even more telling: In completely ignoring the issues of proprietary rights – real estate law and ownership – they lay bare the government’s failure to protect the basic rights of the State and its citizens. Proprietary rights in Judea and Samaria remain under the Jordanian and Ottoman systems, and these laws are outdated, ineffective and in some cases even antisemitic. Even worse, perhaps, is the selective manner in which these laws are enforced by the Israeli judicial and military systems.

Selective enforcement of outrageously outdated laws has enabled – and continues to enable – the Palestinian Authority to exploit the Israeli system, to annex vast areas of Judea and Samaria, to redraw the map, and to lead the entire region toward violent confrontation. Continued reliance on emergency legislation may be the lesser of evils, but it is most certainly not the solution.

"Masafer Yatta"
ט' אייר התשפ"ב - 10 May 2022
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Last weekend, Israel’s High Court of Justice (HCJ) handed down a decision on a petition that’s been pending for two decades. The High Court allowed for hundreds of Palestinian invaders to be evicted from Training Ground 918, an IDF training zone in the South Hebron Hills region. The complicated case has been discussed in the courtrooms for no less than 20 years – a discussion that’s been based mainly on Fake News peddled by radical left-wing NGOs and the Palestinian Authority.

After repeatedly preventing any enforcement action against the invaders (who, in the meantime, built hundreds of additional illegal structures), the HCJ examined the aerial photos and maps, which prove beyond doubt that there was never any permanent Arab settlement in the area before it was declared an IDF training zone.

The Court’s verdict confirmed the obvious, and green-lighted the eviction of the invaders and return of the territory to the hands of the IDF.

It took two decades (!) for the HCJ to reach the right decision about 30,000 dunams that were stolen from the State of Israel – two decades too long, during which the case became more complex, problematic, and entangled in legal bureaucracy.

The Courts’ misguided and boundless leniency toward Palestinian intruders, even when at the expense of Israelis’ security and safety, proves to be a disaster, time and again. Instead of dealing with the problem in 918 early on, the State of Israel now needs to confront a difficult reality on the ground.

In the last few days, unsurprisingly, the Haaretz newspaper launched a propaganda campaign about the “Masafer Yatta eviction”. However, the facts are quite different, as we told you back in February 2021 >> see here.

General
ג' ניסן התשפ"ב - 04 April 2022
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Yesterday, after a field tour with the “Shrinking the Conflict” organization, we found our car with a shattered windshield, a broken door, and a huge rock left on the road. Ironic, no?

As part of a tour that focused on environmental issues, we stopped near Route 465 in the Binyamin Region to get a closer look of the raw sewage that flows unchecked out of Bir Zeit and into the nearby streams, polluting the ground, the water, and the entire ecological system.

When we were about 20 meters from the cars, we noticed an Arab driver who braked and hurled an enormous rock toward our cars, shattering the windshield of Regavim’s field coordinator. This was an act of hatred and violence – and a sadly symbolic end to the tour.

Luckily, we weren’t sitting in the car when the rock was thrown or driving at speed. Sometimes people forget or are unaware of the daily reality in Judea and Samaria. For a long time, Judea and Samaria has been plagued with Arab terror of various sorts: rock attacks, molotov cocktails, knives, guns, and other forms of violence.

We’re not going to back down. We’re not afraid. We’ll continue to protect Israel’s land resources and to preserve Israeli sovereignty – throughout the Land of Israel. This is our one and only country. We refuse to give up on it.

E1: Adumim Region
י' אדר ב' התשפ"ב - 13 March 2022
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The illegal Bedouin outpost of Khan al Ahmar near Kfar Adumim

High Court issues conditional order: We are forced to move toward a conclusion in the matter of Khan al Ahmar

This evening (Sunday) the High Court of Justice issued a conditional order in the most recent round of the Khan al Ahmar case. Tonight’s order, giving the government 120 days to explain its failure to fulfill the three-year old commitment to enforce the law “in the near future,” follows the government’s most recent request for an additional postponement:

“In light of the frequent requests for extensions and postponements, some of which were justified but most of which were less so; and in light of the amount of time that this petition has been pending, nearly three years; and in light of the fact that this ‘saga’ has been unfolding since 2009 when demolition orders were issued … we are forced at this juncture to take a further step toward a conclusion, by issuing a conditional order.”

The Regavim Movement, petitioner in the ongoing battle over the illegal encampment in the Adumim region, reacted to the new order: “The fact that we have been forced to petition the High Court of Justice again and again in order to compel the government to enforce the law is bad enough. Even worse is the government repeatedly giving a commitment to the High Court that it will enforce the law – and then failing to do so. It is not the job of the judicial branch to bail the executive branch out of the mess it’s made.”

E1: Adumim Region
ה' אדר ב' התשפ"ב - 08 March 2022
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The illegal outpost of Khan al Ahmar near Kfar Adumim

Israeli government asks High Court for an additional 30 days in the Khan al Ahmar case “due to the Prime Minister’s intensive involvement in the military crisis in Europe.” Regavim: “We may petition for a summary judgement.”

This evening (Tuesday) the state’s attorney requested an additional 30-day extension, in order to enable “the most senior levels of government, particularly the Prime Minister, to weigh in on this matter.”

The government had been required to respond to Regavim’s most recent High Court of Justice petition no later than this past Sunday (6 March 2022), but as the deadline approached the state requested a 48-hour extension. As this extension runs out, the state has requested an additional postponement, this time for 30 days. The request, submitted in a deposition signed by the Director of the National Security Council Eyal Hulata, claimed that the reason for the latest request was “circumstances that have arisen in the sphere of international diplomacy, including the Prime Minister’s involvement in the European military crisis.”

The Regavim Movement reacted to this latest request for postponement: “To the best of our knowledge, Prime Minister Bennett has returned from his trip to Europe, and as far as excuses go, this one is exceptionally flimsy. We are considering requesting a summary judgement.”

Protection of archaeological sites
ב' אדר א' התשפ"ב - 03 February 2022
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The ancient aqueduct. Credit: Preserving The Eternal

The illegal Palestinian quarry in Beit Fajjar has damaged around two kilometers of the ancient aqueduct that runs between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem. The aqueduct, which dates back some 2,000 years to the time of the Second Temple is considered a marvel of engineering, as it twists and turns for a distance of some 40 km (25 miles) along rocky, hilly terrain that has virtually no incline.

For over 15 years, Regavim has been waging a legal battle to shut down the illegal quarry in eastern Gush Etzion. Responding to our first petition over a decade ago, the government informed the High Court that it had carried out a number of enforcement steps, and was working on a zoning plan for the area that would establish land-use directives for quarrying at the site.

On the basis of the government’s statements and commitments, the High Court rejected Regavim’s petition at that time. Then-Chief Justice Dorit Beinish, who presided over the case, stressed in her judgement that “we are assuming that the enforcement and regulatory actions taken by the respondents will continue, and that the policy that has been formulated will be enforced without interruption.”

Unfortunately, over a decade has passed, and not only have the Israeli authorities failed to take any steps to prevent the continued operation of the quarry, they have allowed it to expand by 33%, deepening the invasion of state land by more than 200 dunams beyond its boundaries. When repeated inquiries and correspondence on the matter were ignored, Regavim went back to court, filing a petition against Minister of Defense Beni Gantz, Minister of the Environment Gila Gamliel, the IDF Commander of Central Command, the Civil Administration and the Israel Police.

Above: 2019. Below: 2009.

The environmental damage caused to this area by the inaction of the authorities responsible for law enforcement is staggering, and, sadly, irreparable. The State of Israel has strict regulations for quarrying permits, and owners and operators are required to finance the rehabilitation of quarried areas when they become inoperative in order to minimize the environmental impact – but this policy vanishes when the imaginary line into Judea and Samaria is crossed. Adding insult to injury, when micro-measures are taken to rehabilitate illegal quarries in these areas, they are paid for by Israeli taxpayers, and the criminals who cause the damage simply carry on, rapaciously exploiting the natural resources of the Land of Israel as they scoff at the law and pocket vast profits, without any responsibility for the destruction they leave in their wake.

Now, in the latest development, our friends at Preserving the Eternal (“Shomrim al Hanetzach”) have exposed the grave damage to one of Israel’s major archaeological treasures.