Sovereignty is not something gained by force -- it requires compromise and endless patience.

...In the last 48 years, no Israeli government has imposed full sovereignty over the parts of the homeland that we have conquered. I am not afraid of puritanical language. We reconquered the land that was originally ours, the land that had waited for us for years. We did not take this land away from any foreign entity that had sovereignty over it, and therefore our claim to it is entirely justified -- historically, legally, internationally and religiously. But the fact is that for decades Israel has avoided imposing full sovereignty over the entire scope of the land.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
31 July '15..

Two buildings in the settlement of Beit El that were demolished under order of the High Court of Justice this week have brought a small group of Jewish pioneers to the point of frustration, prompting them to insult IDF soldiers and harshly criticize the legal system and the government. Before we go any further, I must say that the remarks made by MK Moti Yogev (Habayit Hayehudi) on Wednesday (saying the High Court should be bulldozed) were not legitimate criticism, but rather an embarrassment to his party and to the pioneering settlement enterprise that he purports to represent. Having said that, I will say this: Dear brothers and sisters, the current government is as right-wing as a government in Israel will get. It is legitimate to criticize, even harshly, and it is okay to protest, but anyone who is incapable of playing by the rules of democracy needs to step out of the game and let others carry the settlement enterprise on their shoulders.

It was only 10 years ago that entire communities were destroyed by order of the Israeli government. Has our spirit been broken? Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook used to say that during times like these, nerves of steel are in order. Do not fall into the trap of impatience and frustration and avoid throwing away all the good that we already have. Look for what we have rather than yielding to the fatalist tendency to see only what is absent. The demolition of two buildings is no reason for all this drama. Where is the common sense? This is a classic recipe for "cry wolf" syndrome: When something truly devastating happens, the general public will not be receptive, having had its fill of empty, wasted drama.

The Jewish people are returning home. I say "returning" because this is a years-long process -- hundreds of years in the making and with hundreds of years left to go. The people who look at the diplomatic, social and political picture as a string of specific failures or successes are looking at reality through minimizing, petty eyes, and obviously no government could possibly live up to their expectations.

2.

It is fascinating to see the mirror image of last week's Peace Now conference in some of the reactions to the events in Beit El. In both cases the "rule of radicalization" was in play -- with individuals turning to the radical end of the spectrum when things don't go their way in a kind of puritanical way, as if to say "at least my conscience is clear." It is legitimate to want more, but it takes some degree of maturity and responsibility to understand that you can't always have everything. Sometimes it is best to be content with what you have, out of respect for the independent passing of time that is not always congruous with our own inner timing.

What does it mean to be puritanical? It means a lack of maturity and failure to understand that by nature, political, diplomatic and social processes require compromise. If we aspire to absorb large social groups, in the millions of people, we have to strike a middle ground that will accommodate the widest possible range of people.

In the last 48 years, no Israeli government has imposed full sovereignty over the parts of the homeland that we have conquered. I am not afraid of puritanical language. We reconquered the land that was originally ours, the land that had waited for us for years. We did not take this land away from any foreign entity that had sovereignty over it, and therefore our claim to it is entirely justified -- historically, legally, internationally and religiously. But the fact is that for decades Israel has avoided imposing full sovereignty over the entire scope of the land.

On the other hand, we are settling the land, acre by acre, family by family, home by home -- using the good old Zionist method. Most of us have plenty of patience. What doesn't get done in this generation will be done in the next, God willing. In the meantime, the important thing is to make sure the Zionist foundations are strong.

Kushner - From Israel: It Hurts

Arlene Kushner..
27 June '12..






Yesterday, the first 15 families living in the five Ulpana houses slated for evacuation, by order of the High Court, moved out to their temporary homes ("caravillas" -- a misnomer, I think) on the grounds of a former army base.

They went quietly but with deep sadness -- knowing in their hearts that an injustice was being done to them. I carry that same knowledge in my heart.

I dealt with this issue of the injustice in some detail in a recent posting that can be accessed here: http://arlenefromisrael.squarespace.com/current-postings/2012/6/20/june-20-2012-the-face-of-things-to-come.html .

~~~~~~~~~~

And yet, I believe they acted properly in deciding to go quietly. No active protest -- as was seen at Migron -- would have prevented this evacuation. What it would have done is to pit Jew against Jew -- providing ugly fodder for the international press.

Their fighting would have convinced no one who did not already understand the rightness of their position, nor would it have reversed the situation. Rather, it would have provided "evidence," for those quick to assert this, of the inherent violence of "settlers." And it would have traumatized the children.

“We don’t believe in clashing with security personnel,” resident Michal Kramer told Israel Radio yesterday.

The pain of these residents and their sense of having been wronged has been made clear in public statements they have released. Yesterday, one resident told YNet:

"This is a personal moment of grief, I'm in mourning. Our hearts are broken, but we will hold our heads up high. No one will break our spirit."

~~~~~~~~~~

Whether the "victories" that have been negotiated, such as the building of 300 houses on that army base in Beit El, actually materialize will in large part depend upon the sincerity and determination of the prime minister.

Ulpana: A legal and judicial travesty.

Moshe Dann..
Israel Opinion/Ynet..
26 June '12..

In 2011, the State Prosecutor’s Office asked the High Court to remove a few buildings in Beit El which it said had been built illegally on “private Palestinian land.” The Court accepted this request and ordered the buildings removed by July 1, 2012.

No court, however, heard evidence or adjudicated the question of landownership in Beit El.

Despite ample evidence of serious flaws in the judicial process, High Court judges, having made its decision, rejected further appeals for reconsideration - and there is no way to appeal their decision.

Such cases in which Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria have been destroyed and are threatened with destruction have exposed a widespread systematic corruption within Israel’s judicial system - the State Prosecutor, the Attorney General, the Civil Administration, the Military Advocate General (the IDF’s legal arm) and the High Court of Justice. In order to prevent settlement expansion, these state institutions use their power arbitrarily and without due process.

This corruption represents the greatest threat to Israeli society and its so-called democratic system because it undermines the fundamental rule of law. Here’s how it works.

Tobin - Price Tags and the Bigotry of Low Palestinian Expectations

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
22 June '12..

Earlier this week, a mosque in the West Bank was vandalized. This reprehensible attack is believed to be the work of radical Jews who wished to make it plain to Israeli authorities — and not as probably most Westerners think — the Palestinians, that the removal of settlers from housing that was not legally purchased or constructed with the permission of the state will carry with it a “price tag.” These so-called “price tag” attacks have grown in recent years, even though the overwhelming majority of settlers, not to mention the Israeli people, deplore them. But though any such attack on a religious institution is a stain on the honor of the Jewish people and inevitably generates negative coverage of Israel such as this feature published in the New York Times on Tuesday, the bottom line is that in a democracy thugs do not get their way. As the Times reported that same day, the Israeli government has secured agreement from the few inhabitants of Ulpana to leave their homes that were ruled by a court to be built on private Palestinian property in the vicinity of the existing and quite legal Beit El settlement. In doing so, the rule of law has been vindicated.

But amid the general condemnation of the behavior of the extremist settlers that for some calls into question the legitimacy of the entire Zionist enterprise, it is worth noting an element of the story generally missing from most accounts in the Western press of the “price tag” attacks as well as allegations of settler violence toward local Arabs. However wrong the extremists are–and they are dead wrong–their behavior has not occurred in a vacuum. To focus only on settler misbehavior ignores a context in which attacks on Jews in the West Bank is a regular occurrence. And that includes Arab attacks on synagogues. The problem is that the foreign press gives the Jewish violence the sort of “man bites dog” treatment that makes it worthy of notice, whereas Palestinian misbehavior is simply taken for granted. This bigotry of low expectations is at the heart of the problem.

Kushner - From Israel: Face of Things to Come?

Arlene Kushner..
20 June '12..

When last I wrote, a member of an Israeli crew working on the fence being constructed on our border with Sinai -- precisely to prevent infiltration into Israel -- had just been killed by terrorists who had crossed over from Sinai. (According to one report, one terrorist shot by the IDF was wearing a suicide belt, and planning considerably greater damage.)

This followed by two days the launching of two Grad Katyusha rockets from the Sinai into the Negev.

Then, very shortly after the attack at the fence, rocket attacks from Gaza began.

The army statement at that time was that there was no connection between the Gaza rocket launchings and the terrorist attack out of the Sinai. Such coincidental timing left me a bit dubious.

~~~~~~~~~~

While the situation is still muddled and confused in many ways, I would like to begin today with a report from Barry Rubin of the GLORIA Center. Rubin said (and this has now been confirmed) that the terrorists who attacked at the fence adjacent to the Sinai had come out of Gaza. When he wrote, there were unconfirmed reports that these men were Hamas.

The High Court, Ulpana, and a miscarriage of justice

Moshe Dann..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
18 June '12..

Last week’s struggle over the Bet El neighborhood called Ulpana exposed a massive judicial and administrative failure involving the State Prosecutor, the Civil Administration and ultimately the High Court of Justice.

This saga began in 2007 when Harbi (Harvey Ibrahim Mustafa) Hasen, a Ramallah-born US citizen and current resident of the Palestinian Authority-administered town of Dura al-Qara, near Bet El, applied to register land. Assisted by Peace Now and Yesh Din, Hasen claimed that he had inherited property in Bet El from his father. He brought as proof a document from a Shariah court in Ramallah. The Civil Administration accepted Hasen’s claim without the presentation of a will, without verifying who owned the land and without questioning Hasen’s rights of inheritance.

Hasen apparently claimed rights to succession, but the Succession Order could not have settled competing rights to the property, not only between Arabs and Jews, but family members as well, particularly if all of the putative owners did not participate in the proceedings.

Under prevailing land laws based on Ottoman, British and Jordanian procedures, if the original owner was given state land (called Miri) but did not use the land or pay taxes, the land reverts back to the state. Title to such land could not be transferred without approval of the state.

Iscah Fatal - What will we tell our kids?

Iscah Fatal..
Israel Opinion/Ynet..
15 June '12..

We are the Fatal family: The mother, Iscah, almost 27 years old, a physicist, the father Yoel, almost 28 years old, a yeshiva student and computer technician, and three children – Ariel (4.5), Bat-Ami (3) and Bnaya (7 months.) Ever since we became a family, we’ve been living in apartment number six in building 2012 in Beit El’s Ulpana neighborhood.

Six months have passed since we were told that our tranquil existence here is at risk. Someone up there decided that evacuating and razing the homes of 30 normative families is a small matter, and that peaceful, law-abiding citizens are no more than pawns in a chess game played by attorneys.

At first we didn’t talk about it much. We hoped that if we don’t deal with it, it simply won’t happen. Once in a while, politicians visited here and made various pledges. We convinced ourselves that someone in high places is taking care of us. We were very optimistic.

Yet slowly the fog cleared, and it turned out that indeed there is nobody we can trust but ourselves. We tried to speak with family, friends, acquaintances and even neighbors, yet everywhere we encountered indifference and apathy – “what are you talking about? No way. It will be alright, with God’s help.” Hoping the media would address our plight was out of the question.

There was no choice; in order to fight for our home we had to forget about being nice geeks waiting for someone to approach them. Even though it was difficult for us to believe that we can reach high places, we declared that at least we could say that we tried.

Shragai - Countdown to eviction

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
08 June '12..

“The entire situation is bad,” Minister Ze'ev Binyamin (Benny) Begin told a Knesset committee meeting which convened to discuss the five homes in the Ulpana neighborhood that are slated for demolition. “So we have been forced to choose between the lesser of all evils.” Within the next few weeks, Begin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who worked in concert to defeat the outpost arrangement bill, a parliamentary measure that would have allowed the Ulpana neighborhood to remain intact, are liable to discover that their decision could spell big trouble, since the eviction of 30 families will likely be a difficult, traumatic ordeal.

“As the person who was responsible for the recent petitions, I can say that we undertook systematic actions that were very calculated and that were clearly designed to expose the grave injustice that has been spawned by the construction of the outposts and settlements,” Dror Etkes of Peace Now and Yesh Din told Israel Hayom.

PM Netanyahu's Remarks on the Issue of the Ulpana Neighborhood in Beit El

IMRA..
06 June '12..





(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks today (Wednesday, 6 June 2012) the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El:

"We are not strangers in Beit El. We are not strangers in Judea and Samaria. This is the Land of our Patriarchs. This is where our identity was formed. I say this here in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, and I say this everywhere in the world. Israel is a democratic state in which upholding the law is at the foundation of our free lives. The State of Israel is a law-abiding democracy and as the Prime Minister of Israel I am committed to upholding the law and am I committed to uphold the settlement enterprise, and I tell you that there is no contradiction between the two. The draft law that was rejected today in the Knesset would have hurt settlement whereas the outline that I have decided upon – the expansion of the community, moving the homes and legal defense against any precedent – strengthens settlement.

And yet it must be said that this has been a complicated and difficult day. Moving homes from their location, even if it is only five homes, is certainly not an action that this Government rejoices in doing. But the court ruled as it did and we honor the decisions of the judicial system.

At the same time, the community of Beit El will be expanded. The 30 families will remain in Beit El and will be joined by 300 new families. I tell those who think they can use the judicial system to hurt settlement, that they are mistaken, because in practice, the exact opposite will occur. Instead of shrinking Beit El – Beit El has expanded. Instead of hurting settlement, settlement has been strengthened.

IMRA - Observation: Paradox – proposed law favors real Palestinian land owners

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA..
04 June '12..




Let’s walk through this:

#1. The proposed law to compensate Palestinian land owners is the fairest arrangement for them.

Today if a Palestinian decides to file in court to have part of a Jewish neighborhood torn down because, he claims, it turns out he owns the land it was built on, the most he can expect to gain from the effort is the satisfaction of seeing the homes bulldozed. After all, since the land is in the middle of a Jewish community, beyond the Green Line, there is no way that the authorities are going to permit him to build a home there. And if he sells the land to the Jews, our “peace partner” Palestinian Authority will sentence him to death.

In sharp contrast, under the proposed law, the same Palestinian land owner would get fair financial compensation for the ex-poste confiscated land. And since this is a kind of “force majeure” from the standpoint of the Palestinians, the Palestinian landowner can get fair compensation for his land and stay alive.

Eydar - Time to take a stand

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
04 June '12..

The settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria is the heart of the Likud movement. To sabotage the settlement enterprise is to strike at the conservative camp's ability to govern and steer the Zionist ship back on course. Decades of language and collective consciousness control have turned the settlement enterprise in Israel into an "obstacle" and a "crime" and Zionism into an empty metaphor.

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.

Shragai - Ulpana is just the start

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
03 June '12..

A mistake. A serious mistake. Evacuating the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El is just the beginning. First Migron will be evacuated, then exactly the same situation will repeat itself in the 12-year-old outpost Givat Assaf, and after that 20-year-old Amona will be next in line.

And those examples are just the beginning. Left-wing organizations have many more High Court petitions up their sleeves that apply to much larger neighborhoods and entire settlements that are said to be built on "private land." The Civil Administration has counted more than 1,100 such homes, but the Left is convinced they number in the many thousands.

If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not put an end to this now, he will find himself — by choice or not — gradually implementing a "mini-disengagement."

The solution to the Ulpana problem cannot be localized. The problem is systemic and extensive, and the solution must be as well. The so-called High Court bypass bill, which seeks to authorize structures built on private land retroactively if the owner does not claim it within four years of the buildings' creation, could provide a solution.

Kirshenbaum - Bad precedent: The Supreme Court and Beit El

David Kirshenbaum..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
21 May '12..

The ruling by the High Court of Justice ordering the government to destroy homes in Bet El highlights once again the abusive and outsized power seized by the Supreme Court at the expense of the country’s elected representatives.

It also demonstrates how dangerously successful former justice Aharon Barak’s one-man “Constitutional Revolution,” that began in the 1990s, has been.

While the ramifications of the court’s ruling in the Bet El case were quickly overshadowed by news of the unity government, there is a strong connection between the two items. One of the expressed purposes of the agreement between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz is to change Israel’s system of government and create a more stable democracy.

It is incumbent that that process also restore the proper balance of power between the government, the Knesset and the Supreme Court.

That balance was fundamentally altered by Aharon Barak, who persuaded a generation of Israelis that Israel not only has a constitution, but that it also grants the Supreme Court the power to strike down Knesset legislation in all facets of life. The chorus of approval in academia to Barak’s pronouncements brings to mind the accolades heaped on the emperor’s wardrobe in The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Trainman - Ulpana is neither an outpost nor illegal

Alex Trainman..
Israel Hayom..
06 May '12..

Israel’s Supreme Court will soon decide whether to grant the state an additional 90 days to revise its case on the pending order to demolish buildings in the Ulpana neighborhood of Beit El.

Though labeled as an illegal outpost in most mainstream media, Ulpana is neither an outpost nor illegal. The community comprises 14 large and identical apartment buildings, well within the perimeter of Beit El, a large Jewish community established in 1977, with more than 1,000 families.

According to the Supreme Court ruling, five of the buildings are to be demolished while the other nine buildings are legal according to all interpretations. The five buildings in question are all within 100 meters of buildings the court deems legal.

The court’s verdict is predicated on the concept that the 30 apartments in these five buildings, unlike the nine adjacent buildings, are “built on private Palestinian land.”

In the case of Ulpana, the facts are not so clear. In 2000, the Beit El Development Company completed a land purchase agreement with the person it believed to be the rightful inheritor of the property, a grandson of the property holder according to Jordanian land records. Beit El, through an Arab intermediary, paid the local landowner 300,000 shekels ($79,000) for 30 dunams (7.4 acres) of land.

Shragai - Beit El and Tel Aviv -- what's the difference?

Nadav Shragai..
Yisrael Hayom..
23 April '12..

Almost 40 years ago, Aharon Barak, who was attorney-general at the time, launched a criminal investigation against soon-to-be Governor of the Bank of Israel, Asher Yadlin. In a now-famous remark, Barak said that "justice for Yadlin will be the same as justice for Buzaglo." Yadlin is a typical Ashkenazi name, while Buzaglo is a common Moroccan name. Barak meant to assert that society's stronger and weaker members have equal standing before the law. Indeed, Yadlin was ultimately sentenced to five years in prison.

Guess what? The Buzaglo test applies to Ulpana Hill in Beit El. Because if the same housing complex were located not in Beit El, but in Ramat Aviv or Netanya's Kiryat Nordau neighborhood, and it suddenly came to light that dozens of families had been living on private land unlawfully purchased by an entrepreneur, there is no question what would happen: The state attorney and courts would find a way to fairly compensate the landowner. It would never occur to them to destroy multifamily housing in Tel Aviv or Netanya, or to evict the residents.

But when it comes to Buzaglo, in other words when the mistake, assuming there was mistake, concerns Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria, then it all becomes political and common sense flies out the window. The state attorney, courts and defense minister suddenly adopt a very strict interpretation of the law.

Kushner - From Israel: Crossing a Red Line?

Arlene Kushner..
22 April '12..

First, a Zakkai update. This time I quote verbatim from the parents:

"After two surgeries in 7 weeks, it's very hard for us to believe but we are heading to Boston again for surgery, this time to remove the thoracic component of the tumor. Surgery is scheduled for Monday, April 30th at 7:30 am and is expected to take 5-6 hours. Due to the more complex and higher risk nature of this surgery, which will involve cutting through muscle to spread his ribs as well as fully collapsing his left lung, he will go straight from the OR to the ICU for 1-2 days (with a tube sticking out of him to maintain the pressure in his chest). Our expected stay in the hospital is 4-5 days (hopefully, our trooper will surprise us again just as he has after the first two surgeries!)

"On February 11 (the day before our lives were transformed), we would never have imagined that our son would undergo 3 surgeries in less than 3 months. We truly hope and pray this upcoming surgery will be the last one Zakkai will ever need."

Keep praying, my friends! Rephael Zakkai Avraham ben Yakira Avigael

~~~~~~~~~~

The red line I am referring to is with regard to the scheduled government (or more precisely the Defense Ministry/Civil Administration) demolition of the Ulpana neighborhood (Givat Ha'Ulpana) of Beit El by the end of this month.

The neighborhood is comprised of 15 buildings, but we are speaking here of a total of five buildings that are scheduled for destruction imminently. Those buildings house 30 families, encompassing more than 150 children.

(+ Video) Beit El residents battle to save their homes

Tova Lazaroff
JPost
09 December '11

Yifat Abudram wants to understand how the state could threaten to knock down her home next April, when it gave her a NIS 90,000 grant to buy the ground floor apartment 11 years ago.

Her home is one of 30 endangered apartments located at the outskirts of the Beit El settlement, in an area nicknamed the "Ulpana."



A court battle over the fate of the five small stone apartment buildings — which each house six families — has gone on since 2008. But most residents knew nothing about it until the late summer or early fall.

Abudram, a mother of five, is expecting to give birth to her sixth child this month. She first knew there was a problem when she read about it in the newspaper.

“I was in shock,” she told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday as she sat in her living room, next to a bookshelf filled with religious texts.

“I have cried a lot,” she said.

But she has not stood silent. For months she and her neighbors have led a pitched political campaign to save their homes.

On Thursday, they hosted a representative from the Prime Minister’s Office and MK Faina Kirschenbaum (Israel Beiteinu). But scores of other politicians, including ministers, have visited.

(Read full "Beit El residents battle to save their homes")

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Tattooed Graffiti Artists Bring Color to the Judean Hills

Malkah Fleisher
IsraelNationalNews.com
28 November '10

When a group of tattooed professional Jewish and non-Jewish graffiti artists from around the world descended on the quaint biblical city of Beit El, Israel National News TV's "Eye on Zion" was there! Watch as the unorthodox - and staunchly pro-Israel - 'Artists 4 Israel' transform a children's play center into a symbol of Zionism and Jewish pride.

Graffiti Artists Tour in Beit El Paint Israel


(Read full story)

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The Other Side: The Jews of Judea and Samaria, Part 1

nikudaproduction
08 August '10

(Excellent! Y.)

The media invariably portrays the Jewish citizens of communities in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as fanatics and intolerant bigots. Yet no one really talks to them to see how they really are and what they really think.

This series intends to find out who these "settlers" are, why they choose to live there, and what their aspirations and fears are.



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Dream Education

Batya Medad
Shilo Musings
06 August '10

Twenty-five years ago, our regional council opened up its first high schools. A boys school was opened in Beit El and a girls school in Ofra. Those two yishuvim (communities) were the dominant ones at the time and unabashedly "divided the pie" of goodies between themselves. They also had the only elementary schools allowed to educate the kids up the the Eighth Grade. It took years of struggle, but today the Shiloh Elementary School also goes to the Eighth grade, as do others, but that's another story...

Ofra was the first actual yishuv in the Shomron, and its founders were visionaries, not just pioneers. Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun, well-known Bible expert and educator, was among the first in Ofra. He had been dreaming of what he considered the ideal education for a modern Torah-observant Jewish woman. Not only were the girls to study all of the standard academic and religious courses, but they were to learn sewing, cooking and the first graduation classes even learned basic car maintenance.

(Read full post)

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