Victor Sharpe. I plead with all to take the time to read this long but vitally important exposure of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity that is taking place within the very Biblical Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria – and especially in Area C.
The real estate scam, perpetrated by the UN, certain European governments and by the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians is terrible enough, but the present Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, is allegedly co-operating deeply in the outrage by legalizing illegal Arab outposts in Judea-Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Land of Israel.
The immediate retroactive removal of all illegal Arab construction and settlements is paramount and those countries who have – and are – funding this despicable denial and theft of Jewish sovereignty in its ancient heartland should be exposed. If found guilty, there should be no place for Benny Gantz in a patriotic and truly Zionist government.
At the very least please help publicize this exposure of the ongoing war by the UN and various European governments against Jewish history in its ancestral and Biblical land. Please also support the brave and patriotic work of Regavim.
Author of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.
Israel’s Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, is cooperating with the biggest real estate scam this country has ever seen. He does this in two ways: first, by taking advantage of the current make-up of the coalition government and making moves to legalize illegal Arab outposts in Judea-Samaria, the heartland of the ancient Land of Israel. And secondly, by continuing his policy of ignoring illegal Palestinian construction and agricultural activity in Area C that he began as Defence Minister in the previous government.
Only last week, we were made privy to the effrontery of the PA and their apologists. On 10 February, MK Ahmad Tibi (Joint List) published a Tweet in which he accused Israel of stealing Arab land by destroying an agricultural field, saying this is the face of the “occupation”. However, a deeper examination showed that Israeli state land had been illegally cultivated by residents of the nearby Palestinian town. In other words, Tibi spread the lie that Israel stole land when it is the reverse that is the truth.
The Context of the Scam. To understand the context of the scam one must understand recent history: Judea-Samaria was called the “West Bank” by the Jordanians who occupied it from 1948 to 1967, a name that has stuck until today, just like the old Roman Empire’s occupation name of “Palestine” has stuck until today. Renaming occupied territories is a way to wrest them away from indigenous peoples, something that has happened around the world and not just to the Jewish People. In addition to renaming of indigenous sites, there is the replacement of populations by the occupational power.
Contrary to false accusations that Israel is taking over so-called Palestinian land by the resettlement of Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria, it is the Palestinian Authority (PA) with the help of European funds that is eating away at Area C, land recognized as under complete Israeli control in a contract signed with great international fanfare — the Oslo Accords (exclusive PA control and PA civil and Israeli military control in Areas A and B, respectively).
The scam is set up. First brought to our attention by the NGO, Regavim, the vehicle for accomplishing this deed is the Fayyad Plan. It is endorsed openly and unabashedly by the PA and surreptitiously by the European Union and individual European countries which provide enormous funds for illegal Arab construction in Area C. The Fayyad Plan seeks to establish contiguity of Arab population centers across Area C. By building hamlets and roads on Israeli state land, these outposts surround and choke off Jewish communities and prevent access of Jewish farmers to their cultivated fields and grazing lands. At the same time, they become part of Area B, under PA civil authority, thus de facto decreasing the size of Area C. If permits for this construction are sought from Israel’s Civil Administration as the law demands, it is only after a demolition order has been served. Demolitions are delayed for months and years as the cases make their way through court and appeals — and the illegal hamlets grow.
Some of the illegal Arab outposts draw international attention as anti-Israel “human rights” (but actually political) organizations use the supposed plight of the Arabs as ammunition against the brutal Israeli “occupation”. Israel is accused of denying them access to water, electricity and access roads. These propagandists do not mention that if these hamlets were legal, they would have been hooked up to national infrastructure and would have all the basic amenities provided to all legitimate residential sites.
Perhaps one of the most infamous of these illegal outposts is el-Mufaqara in the South Hebron Hills. It was the site of intense violence blamed on the Jews, but closer examination reveals an alternative explanation for it. Shortly after this incident, a group of anti-Israel Israeli NGOs (comprised of Jews and Palestinian Arabs) made a show of bringing a water container to el-Mufaqara as if the people had no access to water otherwise.
The scam is exposed in fact, it is a two-pronged scam: first, the residents of el-Mufaqara do have water. They bring in enough water containers for their own use along access roads that they themselves built. Secondly, their “homes” in el-Mufaqara are not their only homes. A reliable source who requested remaining anonymous revealed that they also have homes in the legal town of Yatta, just on the other side of the adjacent highway. In historical perspective, this makes sense: shepherds would set up a shelter called a shomera near grazing land in summer as they sometimes moved great distances to find feed for their sheep and goats and it was inconvenient to return home each day. The caves or rudimentary rock structures they would build then formed the basis for the illegal outpost they called el-Mufaqara.
If the residents of el-Mufaqara want water from taps and electricity from the national grid, they have only to go to their homes in Yatta, a short drive away. There are about 40 homes in el-Mufaqara and they are usually empty. Only a small contingency of residents can be found at any time at the site, the others are back home in Yatta, according to the source. They come out in full force when there is an important event, such as the water caravan last October or the January 25th’ visit to the site by Meretz MK Esawi Freij, organized by anti-Israel NGOs Breaking the Silence and Taayush.
One must wonder if Freij and the Jewish members of these two organizations are ignorant of the fact that all so-called residents of el- Mufaqara have permanent homes in Yatta or if they even went to one of these homes for refreshment after the photo op. The anti-Israeli campaign is constant and unrelenting. For example, Combatants for Peace held another of a series of “water campaign” webinars on 8 February. The panel ignored questions I asked about the fact that el-Mufaqara residents have permanent homes in Yatta and if they knew that, contrary to their contention, unrecognized Jewish communities are not connected to the Israeli grids. Mohammad Hamamdi, resident-anti- Israel-activist of el-Mufaqara admitted on camera that he gets paid for staying in the outpost.
The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies also reports that, “Arab residents from Areas A and B are bused in after having been encouraged by incentives to relocate or start a second home in the new [illegal] settlements.” When outposts such as el-Mufaqara are legalized, that will mean that the residents will be in possession of two legal properties, either of which can then be sold. And this is what makes this a wonderful real estate scam both at the individual level for people like Hamamdi and others fortunate and foresighted enough to take part in the ruse, and on the societal level for the PA that is relentlessly stealing Israeli land. All with the blessing of Israel’s own Defence Minister, Benny Gantz.
Is that all? Perhaps there’s more than one scam being played out in el-Mufaqara and other places like it: On one hand, the PA is scamming world opinion, whipping up a froth of antisemitic demonization that portrays the Jewish State as cruel colonizers while at the same time making key territorial conquests and milking huge sums out of humanitarian aid budgets of European countries. Perhaps Benny Gantz and leftist leaders as well as Israeli “human rights” organizations are scamming the Israeli public, hiding their de facto creation of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel from an electorate that has clearly and consistently rejected this naive and dangerous notion.
The Arabs and Bedouin who are participating in the el-Mufaqara-style passion plays might be best described as small-time con artists playing bit parts. The real criminal masterminds are using them to carry out the truly big scam – the stealthy creation of a Palestinian state “From the River to the Sea.” IsraelDiaries.com High Court Issues “Decree Nisi” Regarding Racist Law Naomi Linder Kahn Responding to a petition filed by the Regavim Movement, Israel’s High Court of Justice (HCJ) issued a preliminary injunction against Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who has refused to repeal the Jordanian law still in force in Judea and Samaria prohibiting the sale of land to Jews – despite the recommendations of previous ministers and Ministry of Defense professional and legal advisers.
Today (Tuesday) the High Court of Justice handed down a preliminary injunction requiring the government to submit, within 60 days, a defense of its continued enforcement of Jordanian Law #40 which prohibits the sale of land in Judea and Samaria to Jews. This law, passed in the 1950s during the Jordanian occupation, remains in force to this very day. Among the many restrictions that apply exclusively to Jews and limit their ability to purchase land in Judea and Samaria, this is perhaps the most egregious – but it is certainly in not alone: Jews, and only Jews, are denied access to the Land Registry for this region, unlike any other area under Israeli jurisdiction, where land deeds and property titles can be obtained with the click of a mouse and downloaded from the government’s website. Likewise, Jews – and only Jews – are required to obtain approval of any property transactions (even when both the buyer and seller are Jews) in Judea and Samaria; Jews alone are subject to a staggering array of military orders that obstruct the use of land. – and the list goes on and on.
Since the liberation of Judea and Samaria in 1967 from Jordanian occupation (which was almost universally rejected and condemned by the international community), land purchases for settlement by Jews were carried out according to extremely convoluted work- around procedures designed to evade the problem rather than solve it: Corporations were registered as legal entities in Judea and Samaria, for the purpose of circumventing the prohibition against sale of property to Jewish individuals , thus avoiding “the Jewish problem.” Aside from the inherent racism of this arrangement, the work-around “solution” has posed a major obstacle to the development of Judea and Samaria, and a major violation of Jews’ fundamental rights. In late 2018, the Ministry of Defense’s legal counsel and professional staff initiated an examination of Jordanian Law #40 and the regulations that require Jews to receive special permits for property transactions, with an eye toward their repeal. The conclusions of this examination, reflected in a policy recommendation that took shape in the final months of Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s tenure, were finalized during the tenures of Netanyahu and Naftali Bennet who succeeded Lieberman at the helm of the Defense Ministry. They recommended the repeal of the restrictions that prohibit Jews from purchasing land, as well as a very significant easing of requirements for special land – transaction permits.
Regavim petitioned the High Court of Justice when the current Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, announced that he does not intend to repeal Law #40 – despite the recommendations of the Ministry of Defense professionals and his predecessors, Netanyahu and Bennett. Justices Hendel, Groskopf and Shochat today issued a preliminary order against Defense Minister Gantz and required him to present his arguments against the repeal of the law within 60 days.
The Regavim Movement welcomed the news of the newly issued order. Attorney Boaz Arzi said, “Our petition asked an obvious question: How is it possible in Judea and Samaria, of all the places in the world, a racist law still prohibits Jews from buying property? The High Court of Justice has demanded that the government explain why this law is still on the books, and why it is still enforced.” Regavim.org A decree nisi or rule nisi (from Latin nisi ‘unless’) is a court order that will come into force at a future date unless a particular condition is met. Unless the condition is met, the ruling becomes a decree absolute (rule absolute), and is binding
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