As goes Migron, so goes Judea and Samaria

By JOSH HASTEN, JPOST

I fear that under our current leadership all of these communities are susceptible to dismantlement down the road.

The government recently decided to back the High Court of Justice ruling to evacuate the community of Migron by August 1, 2012. Per an agreement facilitated between Minister Bennie Begin and the residents of Migron, the community will be re-located just 2 km. away from its current site.

The Court’s rationale for tearing down a Jewish community over the so-called Green Line only to rebuild it almost literally just down the road is that the land on which Migron stands is, according to a 2006 petition filed by Peace Now, privately owned Arab land.

The ruling ignores the fact that Migron was established with government support to the tune of NIS 4.3 million, provided by the Housing Ministry a decade ago. The ruling also ignores that according to Migron residents, they have yet to see reliable evidence in court that Arabs own the land.

Gidon Rosenfeld, who lives with his family in Migron, says “the area was abandoned State Land and therefore it should be permissible for the residents to remain in their homes.”

Community spokesman Itai Chemo concurs that proof of Arab ownership doesn’t exist, and says that Peace Now filed their petition because he says in their view “all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are obstacles to the establishment of Palestinian state.”

In fact it is Peace Now’s reaction to the ruling which proves that Chemo is on target. While the organization celebrated the court’s order to move the community, executive director Yariv Oppenheimer told this newspaper that “he hoped the government would change its mind with regard to authorizing new Migron homes near the Psagot winery.”

Since there is zero doubt that the winery is on state land, the fact that Oppenheimer is against re-establishing the homes there shows that the case of Migron is in fact not a story of he said, she said, in regard to a specific plot of land, but a symbol whose fate is tied to fate of the future of every Jewish home in every community throughout Judea and Samaria.

That then-Opposition head Tzipi Livni (recently defeated in her party primary), like Oppenheimer, also is against rebuilding Migron, since she says it is immoral to move families to a new location only to evacuate them in a future peace deal with the Palestinians, confirms this very sad truth.

On the surface it might seem that Livni is the ultimate humanitarian whose only concern minimizing the trauma suffered by these loyal Israeli citizens. But if that were the case, she would have been an adamant opponent of the near-sighted 2005 Gaza expulsion, in which some families who had arrived in Gaza after being kicked out of Yamit, were also forced to move a second time around.

The truth is, though, that Livni is unabashedly in favor of evacuating communities in Judea and Samaria as part of the nearly 20- year old failed “peace process,” which has yet to bare any signs of true peace.

It’s important to remember that Migron and the other communities in the Binyamin area located along route 60 including Beit El, Ofra, Eli, Shilo are all located on the other (eastern) side of the security fence. Thus I fear that without doubt under our current leadership all of these communities are susceptible to dismantlement down the road.

It makes no difference that thousands of Jewish families live in these communities, while Migron is only home to 60 families. In the end, in the view of those who want to implement a racist policy of “no Jews allowed,” it’s not about numbers, it’s about location.

Since former prime minister Ariel Sharon built the fence, government officials have always differentiated between Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, dubbing towns west of the fence “consensus” communities, while the fate of those on the eastern side always seemed up in the air.

But like Migron located to the east, residents to the west should also be concerned.

Simply listening to what our so-called peace partners in the Palestinian Authority are saying makes it crystal clear, as they have never differentiated between places like Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion, or Yitzhar and Har Bracha. They are all referred to as being “illegal settlements” and therefore are all seen as belonging to a future Palestinian state.

The eastern (and northern, and southern) parts of Jerusalem fit into that category as well. In other words, the reality is that they will never accept any Israeli offer which includes even one so-called “settlement,” thus proving that negotiations with the PA are futile.

While Sharon backtracked from his well-known statement that “as goes Netzarim, so goes Tel Aviv,” in order to implement his disengagement plan debacle, it’s time for Israelis to realize, “as goes Migron, so goes all of Judea and Samaria,” and eventually the rest of the country.