After the By-Pass law was defeated under duress from Bibi, he went a long way in a speech to reassure the Right. These new units in Beir El will be built in a formerlymilitary zone. There are big problems in law to change the use as the only use which justified the expropriation in the first place was for military purposes.
A State Department official said
“Continued Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank undermines the peace efforts and contradicts Israeli commitments and obligations including the 2003 Road Map.
“The US position on Israeli settlements is clear – we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. We also oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts,”
Speaking at a press conference after the vote, Netanyahu lashed out at left-wing organizations that have petitioned the High Court of Justice to get such outposts dismantled. “Those who think they are using the legal system to weaken the settlements are mistaken, since the opposite is actually taking place,” he said.
Specifically, he promised, the Beit El settlement will be expanded by 300 new homes. That pledge is meant to compensate for the planned demolition of Beit El’s Ulpana neighborhood, which was the immediate impetus for the bill’s submission. The bill’s defeat paves the way for the outpost to be demolished by July 1, in line with the High Court’s order.
Moreover, Ulpana itself will not actually be demolished: Instead, the five apartment buildings in question, which are home to 30 families, will be moved, intact, to a nearby tract of land confiscated by the army in the 1970s.
Third, Netanyahu and Housing Minister Ariel Atias announced that they will immediately issue a tender for the sale of land to build an additional 551 housing units in other West Bank settlements. About 60 percent of these will be in the settlement blocs that Israel wants to keep under any future deal with the Palestinians, including 117 in Ariel, 92 in Ma’aleh Adumim and 114 in Efrat. But the remaining 40 percent will be built outside the blocs, including 84 in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, and 144 in Adam.
Fourth, Netanyahu acceded to a long-standing settler demand by promising to divest Defense Minister Ehud Barak of sole authority to approve or veto new construction in the settlements and transfer this authority to a ministerial committee. The theory behind this demand, which several Likud ministers had also pushed, is that Barak is one of the ministers least friendly to the settlements, so diluting his influence would improve the chances of getting new construction approved.
However, the new committee will be chaired by Netanyahu – who in the past has coordinated his positions closely with Barak, and will presumably continue to do so. Indeed, Barak’s staff offered no criticism whatsoever of this decision, and Defense Ministry officials said that in practice, it will change little, since several other ministers have in any case been involved in decisions on settlements in recent months.
Finally, according to officials in the Prime Minister’s Bureau, Netanyahu extracted a legal opinion from Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein outlining a mechanism to provide settlers with protection against future suits by Palestinians who own land on which settlements or outposts were built. “Weinstein’s opinion met the prime minister’s demands,” said one, though he declined to elaborate on how this mechanism would work.
Netanyahu and Weinstein, along with other senior members of the state prosecution, held a lengthy meeting on this issue Tuesday night. At that meeting, which ended up running into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Netanyahu also sought Weinstein’s approval for the relocation of Ulpana and the planned new construction in Beit El, which will also be on land originally seized by the army. In a brief statement issued after it ended, the prime minister said, “The solution we found will both bolster settlement and uphold the rule of law.”
Weinstein, however, refused to offer any elaboration of his own position, despite repeated requests by journalists. Instead, the Justice Ministry issued a brief statement saying merely that he held extensive deliberations on various proposals for solving the problem. It then reiterated three statements he has made several times previously: that he opposed the bill defeated Wednesday; that he doesn’t think the High Court’s ruling on Ulpana sets a precedent for other, similar cases; and that the state should work harder to prevent building on private Palestinian land before it happens.
But the issue of building civilian housing on land seized for military purposes is problematic from a legal perspective, and several of the academic experts on international law whom Weinstein consulted this week said they believe it would violate international law and create serious international complications for Israel.
The U.S. State Department responded to the announcement of the new construction by saying it believes settlement construction undermines efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
At his press conference Wednesday, Netanyahu said, “Relocating homes isn’t a step the government is happy to take. But the court decided as it did, and we respect the court’s decisions.”
“Israel is a democratic country, and obedience to the law is an important element of our ability to live in freedom,” he added. “As prime minister, I’m committed to upholding the law, and I’m also committed to upholding settlements. There’s no contradiction between the two.”
The Knesset vote was held a day after Netanyahu announced that the government opposed the bill, and that any minister or deputy minister who supported it would be fired. Several ministers and deputy ministers had initially considered voting for the bill anyway, and some openly pledged to do so. But in the end, all of them either voted against or skipped the vote, saying that the new moves announced by Netanyahu were sufficient to justify the bill’s defeat.
Nevertheless, settlement activists vowed at their own press conference Wednesday to continue the battle to keep Ulpana from being demolished, both by submitting additional legislation and by protest activities. As if to prove their seriousness, a truckload of tires was delivered to Ulpana later Wednesday to be used as barricades.
“The Netanyahu government has been revealed Thursday in all its shame and poverty,” said one activist, Ulpana resident Yehuda Yifrach. “It should have provided a real solution.”
During the Knesset debate, hundreds of supporters of the bill demonstrated nearby, blocking off roads in the area. Clashes broke out between the police and the protesters, and at least four of them were arrested.
Dozens of activists then proceeded to block roads at the entrance to Jerusalem, and the city’s light rail service was temporarily disrupte
What amends? He is destroying Jewish homes to make life difficult if not impossible for Jews in Yehuda and Shomron in every way he can. He sends the black uniformed Russian goyim YaSSam thugs in the middle of the night to destroy Jewish plywood shacks and beat a mother of a two week old infant, they also sadistically beat a seven year old boy as they destroy his home and leave his family in the wet cold night. When does Pipi Not-a-yahud keep his word to the Jews of Yehuda and Shomron except when he threatens to destroy their homes?
Those who blame Ehud Eichmann Barak for this must remember that Pipi appointed him his henchman in the guise of Defense Minister who allows Arab violence against Jews (he may even coordinate their attacks), allows thousands of rockets to fall on the south and does nothing against the Iranian nuclear threat. Their only obsession is destroying Jewish homes and prosecuting rabbis for writing Halachic books as incitement. Leftists and Arab call for murder of Jews but nothing is done, only Jews are arrested for ‘incitement’.
Netanyahu also profits from the Sudanese infestation of Tel Aviv and Eilat who bring crime and defecate in the streets because Obama through the UN pays him $1,800 per illegal alien. We need actions to believe Pipi Peres-ra-hu otherwise we should ask which tip of his forked tongue he spoke with.
@ BlandOatmeal:
The US govt is at war with the Anglo-American Convention of 1924 — to which it is not only presidentially signatory, but also legally bound by senatorial ratification.
It is obligatory domestic law, awaiting action which may be approaching ripeness.
BlandOatmeal Said:
You got that right.
By the way I have been in discussion with senior analysts about the alliance between the Obama Whitehouse, including the State Department, with Qatar and the MB and Saudi Arabia. They are in total sync on everything but Iran. I will be writing an article on the subject. Together they hope to rule the world. The Roadmap was cooked up between them as a means to bypass Res 242 and Oslo.
yamit82 Said:
What G-d decreed cannot be changed. Remember the blessings and curses that attend the Jewish people. Every nation that sought to harm the Jewish people is in serious trouble. The rest of it is the barking of the dogs in the caravan.
@ yamit82:
The US government is siding with Israel’s enemies, using diplomatic and economic pressure to force Israel to yield to enemy pressure. Whether or not that is a casus belli, is up to experts to argue. Israel, and every sovereign nation, for that matter, has authority over building permits, construction & demolition, and deciding which of its citizens is allowed to live where; and the US is using forms of extortion to force Israel to yield this sovereignty to others. Getting past all the technicalities and BS, the US is acting as Israel’s enemy — in a very real war, that every month claims Israeli lives.
Extending this argumement, to say that the US is at war with Judaism, is too much of a stretch for me. Settling the land is certainly an important PART of Judaism, but it’s a part of Judaism that Jews have been ignoring for thousands of years. If the US is “at war” with Judaism because of opposing settling the Judean heartland, then the Government of Israel is also at war with Judaism. The point I made, was that the government of the US is warring against the government of Israel, attempting to undermine the latter’s sovereignty. Nearly all of Judaism’s rabbis, by the way, would also stand convicted of “warring against Judaism” by your criteria, because for nearly 2000 years they have opposed the takeover of Judea and Samaria by a Jewish government. As I said, I believe this is quite a stretch.
Bibi will go down in shame as Bibi the Bulldozer
“If the Prime Minister carries out the destruction of innocent people’s homes, Netanyahu, will go down in history in shame and humiliation for the heartless outcome of this immoral move.
If you think the nation can be bribed with ten new buildings in Beit El or even hundreds of homes, it won’t work. These hundreds of homes in Beit El should have been authorized years ago.
If Netanyahu goes through with this immorality, the public will make sure he goes down in shame.
and “this Israelity!””
Obama Orders Embassy to Remain in Tel Aviv
Obama for the seventh time exercises the “security” waiver to ignore a Congressional law for the US. embassy to be in Jerusalem.
Obama Needs Iran for Reelection, Says former EU Advisor
Obama wants world powers to keep talking with Iran to keep a high price of oil from hurting his campaign, says a former EU advisor.
I still believe that by end of Sept. if Obama looks like he will lose the elections he will attack Iran.
@ BlandOatmeal:
I agree with all your comment but on closer examination I submit that America is at war with Judaism and the G-d of the Jews. What is Judaism if it isn’t Y&S and Jerusalem and the rights of Jews to Land the G-d of Israel gave only to the Jewish people. Everything emanates from this.
America has essentially declared war on our G-d and will pay a terrible and tragic price. Don’t know how or when but you can’t win against the Boss.
The US is, in fact, at war with Israel. These interferences into Israel’s internal affairs, and attacks on Israeli sovereignty, are an act of war. It’s time the stupid Israelis woke up to the fact.