Israel Speaks
In summer 2012 two Jewish settlements are likely
to be demolished in Samaria, in the northern West Bank.
In both cases the Supreme Court has ruled an evacuation
of settlements established by the Government
over 10 years ago.
These decisions have increased tensions within the Israeli society,
especially between the right wing settlement supporters,
and the leftist activists,
who are opposed to the Israeli presence in the West Bank.
The situation causes clashes also between
the ministers who oppose settlement evacuation,
and the Supreme Court judges who ruled the evacuation.
Beit El is a Jewish settlement
located north of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
Didi Dikshtein is a student of economics,
and he has lived in Beit El for 4 years.
His parents and brothers were killed in 2001,
when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at their car
on the way to Hebron.
Didi's family consists of his wife Oriya and their two daughters.
Beit El is a well known biblical place.
The site of Jacob's dream is just above us.
Beit El is one of the largest Jewish settlement in the area
with almost 7000 residents.
Most of them are people with ideology who believe,
that the land of Israel was given to the people of Israel.
That is why they came to live here in the land of their fathers.
Didi and Oriya live in the northern part of Beit El,
called Givat HaUlpana.
5 residential buildings in this neighborhood
are to be demolished by the court's order.
The Dikshtein family lives in one of them.
This neighborhood was built after the murder of Ita and Efraim Tzur
almost 16 years ago.
They were killed by Arabs near Beit El.
Prime Minister Netanyahu participated in the funeral,
and he pointed at this hill and promised,
that a neighborhood will be built here, and so it was.
Ehud Barak established it in 1999.
The Government invested here on roads, electricity and water.
They established the neigborhood.
Everyone who bought an apartment here in 1999
received 20 000 dollars to come and live here.
In 2008, 10 years after the neigborhood was established,
came the organizations Yesh Din and Peace Now,
and they found an Arab with the same name
as the person who sold the land.
We have documents of this purchase, but this Arab claimed,
that we bought it from the wrong person.
The Arab went straight to the Supreme Court,
the issue was not investigated in the District Court.
They did not listen to the residents,
or wait for the desicion of the District Court,
which is investigating the issue.
The Supreme Court decided right away to have the neighborhood removed
without waiting for the result from the District Court.
We got the message a year ago that we will be evacuated,
though no-one ever heard our claims.
This is a young neighborhood and its people contribute to the State.
I was just released from the army a few months ago.
In these five buildings there are 30 families.
Among them four people are army officers.
One family was evacuated from Gaza,
and now they are going to be evacuated again.
We have terror victims, students, high-tech people and rabbis.
It's hard. People came here with ideology,
and they are worried that they will be thrown out of their homes.
People have been paying for these houses for 15 years.
They are living here with their families, where would they go?
They are afraid. Some people can't sleep at night,
the children don't know what is going on
and who is the enemy - the terrorists or the soldiers,
who are coming to take us away from our homes?
The situation of Givat HaUlpana is complicated
and juridically unprecedented.
Alan Baker, former Israeli ambassador to Canada,
is a veteran law expert who has served as the Legal Counsel
of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and as a legal officer in the UN.
He is a member of the team appointed by the Government,
that investigates legal land ownership in the West Bank.
The team formulates also bills and policies concerning the issue.
South of Beit El, only 5 km from Jerusalem
is located a Jewish settlement called Migron,
that is also to be demolished in summer 2012.
Elisheva Razvag is an occupational therapist,
and she lives in Migron with her husband and two children.
Migron appears twice in the Bible, both times as a big city.
First time in the time of the prophet Samuel,
when king Saul sat under a tree in Migron.
If the king was sat here, this must have been a big place.
The second time is when Sanherib came to destroy the land.
He went through all the important cities,
because he thought that was a good way to take the land.
One of the cities was Migron, on the way to Jerusalem.
Our settlement was established in 1999.
At first it was an archaeological site.
It was the time of the intifada.
The settlement is on a hill overlooking road 60,
which connects Jerusalem with all the settlements in the area.
People driving on the road where targets.
Arabs would stand here and shoot the passing cars.
I was then in high school, and there were girls living in Beit El,
and they wrote their wills at the age of 15, because they were afraid.
Their buses were often attacked between Jerusalem and Beit El.
Thus the State wanted to have a settlemenet here,
because a settlement makes it impossible
for terrorists to shoot from here.
Migron was established with the support of the State.
Over 40 families live there.
We did't build anything here.
We did not make the road and put the electricity.
It would be impossible, the electricity and the water
are not ours, the State owns them.
Look around, you can see that we could not have done it privately.
The State brought water and electricity and paved the roads.
In 2003 it also published a plan to turn this into
a settlement of 500 apartments, which is a big place.
In 2006, almost 7 years after the establishment of Migron,
a group of Arab residents from the villages nearby
appealed to the Supreme Court.
They claimed that Migron is on their land.
After long legal proceedings the court determined,
that the settlement will be demolished by April 2012.
The government representatives managed to find a solution
that satisfied the both parties, but the Supreme Court rejected it.
It ruled that Migron should be evacuated by the end of June 2012.
The residents of this place are law-abiding citizens.
We believe in the State, without it we wouldn't have much.
We know from our history that we have no-one else to count on.
So we turned to the Government, who proposed us a solution.
According to it we will leave willingly, though it's hard for us,
and the evacuation is postponed three and a half years
until a new neighborhood will be ready on this same hill.
The Supreme Court rejected this agreement,
though it was difficult to make both for us and the Government.
They said it harms the rights of the Arabs who own the land.
Though the ownership was never confirmed,
and there are many precedents,
and it was never cultivated and no Arab would come here
and use the land.
It is a hard land and it was never cultivated.
In many countries alternative solutions have been found
in a situation, where people have settled in a land,
that is not theirs.
Usually landowners settle for a financial compensation.
In the case of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank
the only solution is to demolish the buildings.
According to Alan Baker the issue of Jewish settlements
is influenced by the international pressure on Israel.
The settlers have noted an opposite situation in the Negev,
in Southern Israel.
There the Beduins have been for years taking over lands
and building illegal buildings.
If the evacuation really takes place in summer 2012,
clashes are expected between the settlers and the police.
In a Jewish settlement called Amona in Samaria
a dramatic demolition of homes was carried out a few years ago.
Revital Halbershtat is the spokeswoman of Amona.
Amona is a religious community and it was established in 1996
by a group of youngsters from Ofra who came here for security reasons
and to establish a new settlement in the land.
Amona is mentioned in the book of Joshua,
where the villages of Benjamin area are listed.
One of them is the village of Amona.
There are remains of an ancient Jewish village
with wineries and Jewish graves.
We have not developed it because we haven't got the budget for it,
but it is certain that it was an ancient Jewish settlement.
In 2006 the Government decided to demolish
the nine residential buildings of Amona.
10 000 policeman and soldiers were sent to carry out the demolition.
About 1000 right wing activists fortified themselves in the houses.
Most of them were youngsters.
The houses were built after we had an understanding and promises
of Ehud Barak, that a neighborhood would be built here.
The Supreme Court nevertheless decided that it was illegal
and ruined the houses.
It was a very hard blow for the settlers.
Amona was the first place that was evacuated after Gush Katif
and the first time when settlers objected the evacuation,
and especially the violence that was used against them.
They decided to fight and not to be quiet and accept this,
and it became a symbol after which the Goverment
has been less eager to evacuate settlements.
Even though the settlement has stood already for 15 years,
the legal investigations are still ongoing,
and the evacuation is still possible.
There are political and international pressures,
and there are the leftist organizations that strike us hard,
they fight against our legitimacy.
The Arabs are showing a false picture.
It is enough to look around here,
the land is open to the rest of the population.
Look at the Arab houses, they build here without asking no-one.
Reality is twisted and that is why we hold on to this place,
because that is how we can defend our rights.
It is very hard for a family with many children
to live in a 45 square meters caravan,
so we extend as much as possible.
Above all we keep believing,
because this land belongs to the people of Israel,
and we have the right to build our homes where we choose
without threats, just like our neighbours do in their villages.
Though the demolition date is near,
most of the residents of Givat HaUlpana and Migron
have not yet decided what they are going to do.
Right now the State began building a temporary neighborhood for us.
When the State announces, that it respects our agreement
and will not demolish this place,
until the District Court has investigated the land ownership,
then we will leave this place with great pain, but we'll do it.
We have no choice.
But if the Government will not respect our agreement,
we will fight this evacuation to the last moment.
We are not ready for an evacuation.
We don't believe that such an absurdity can happen.
We are certain that the Government will find a solution,
that will allow us to keep living here in peace without fear.
We don't have solutions, what can we do, where would we go?
We believe that a solution will be found.
The people of Amona and the other settlers are people,
who love life and want to live in peace just like others.
We don't want to fight but we think we should have legitimacy.
Many Jews in the West Bank feel that settling in Judea and Samaria
is their calling.
Though the future looks uncertain, they believe,
that the situation is always in God's control.
I know that He is in control,
though not always in the way we expect
and sometimes we are surprised by it.
We can look at the things that have happened to our nation,
wars and difficulties, victories and success, but also struggles.
I hope that this neighborhood will stay
and that our hold in our land will get stronger,
but it might happen, just like in Gush Katif.
It doesn't decrease my trust in God,
that He loves us and takes care of us,
and that He has a plan, but we don't always understand it.
To me it's clear that He is in control.
But we could ask the same question about many other things
in our people's history, we had had many tragedies.
On the other hand, since the old times
we are the only people that have lasted.
So there must be some kind of plan.
We have been here for 15 years despite all problems
and we believe that God will lead us in the future too.
Struggles are part of believer's life
and personally I believe that Jews have to prove
how much they love the land of Israel
so that they will have the right to live here.
Translation: Hannele Tainio