Why kid ourselves? Undoubtedly, there is a certain connection between the upcoming elections and the government’s plans to adopt the Levy Report’s recommendations.
Before the polls open, Netanyahu is returning to the warm embrace of the Right. He kind of distanced himself from the Right over the past few years, but it is never too late to reconcile and go back home. In contrast to leftist rhetoric, Judea and Samaria is also home.
And yet, the Left should not get too angry. The Levy Report is not an annexation declaration. More than anything else, it rectifies a civil injustice, and, as we all know, civil rights is an issue that is very dear to our peace-seeking brothers. As long as we don’t enact a basic law stating that settlers are second-class citizens, they deserve to manage their assets like all other citizens. No more, no less.
A Tel Aviv resident is not required to obtain a permit from the defense minister before he purchases a new home. Jews, and Jews alone, are prohibited from buying property – even an empty lot – in Hebron without such a permit. Every land dispute in Migron is automatically referred to the High Court of Justice, while in Raanana such disputes can be settled in a magistrates’ court.
The Levy Report seeks to end this outrageous discrimination. It does not suggest that Israel institutionalize land-grabbing or confiscate Palestinian possessions. It does, however, call for balance. In case the report’s recommendations are adopted, Palestinians will no longer be exempt from presenting proof of ownership. Today, this is exactly the situation over there. Jewish farmers are being dispossessed of their lands after years of cultivation only because their Palestinian neighbor suddenly remembered that his great-grandmother once planted a few olive trees there.
Of course, those who assume that Hebron and Migron are situated on land that has been owned by Palestinians since the days of our father Abraham will prefer the Talia Sasson Report over the Edmond Levy Report, but the government has the right to adopt the most recent one. The Levy report was drafted by three legal experts, not by one attorney. The Levy Report refutes the claim that Israel in an occupying force in the territories. This claim, which is popular among people who consider the Western Wall to be conquered territory, is not a legal ruling. These people systematically ignore the fact that Israel did not conquer a country in 1967; it conquered a vacuum.
There has not been one moment of Palestinian sovereignty in Judea and Samaria since our forefathers were expelled from the area during the days of Bar Kokhba. The sun won’t die if we replace the Sasson Report with a more reasonable document.
In 1920 the WWI Allies at San Remo adopted the Balfour Declaration and recognized the exclusive political rights of the Jews in Palestine. But they gave legal dominion initially to England in a trust agreement in which the beneficiary was World Jewry. As trustee, the UK could exercise legal dominion over those political rights, exercise sovereignty that was not intended to vest in World Jewry until the Jews had attained a population majority in Palestine.
In the 1920 meeting at San Remo, the French Berthelot wanted to add “political rights” to the savings clause in the Balfour Declaration of “the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities” that were not to be impaired when the Jews did exercise sovereignty. However the attempt failed. At best, the French got what was in effect a side letter, a process verbal that stated the meaning of the clause as the Jews could not require the non-Jewish Communities to surrender any of their rights. That was perfectly OK as the non-Jews had never had any political rights. They had always been ruled from afar.
The Jews attained a population majority in 1950 and by now it is 80%. With the annexation of Judea and Samaria it will still be 66% even if all the Arabs there will swear fealty to the Jewish state. Gaza could be retaken and given Home Rule until the Jewish Majority climbed even higher as it will with the immigration from the diaspora and with the Jewish birth rate much higher than the Muslim birth rate as I understand from Ambassador Yoram Ettinger and the Begin-Sadat Center.
In 1967 the IDF “liberated” Judea and Samaria, they did not “occupy” it and the language of the Geneva Convention is irrelevant.
There are many legal reasons to seize what one owns or deserves as recompense. However, it is the action of seizing that is the most important. Although I am all for the legal and diplomatic front I see it as a tactic to ameliorate fallout from outside, give a reason to the bystander to side with Israel and convince secular Jews of its correctness. However, YS must be part of Israel, that must be the goal.