When the location of the fence was adjudicated upon, the High Court decided that the location of the fence was to be determined by defense needs only but these needs must be balanced with Arab demands and rights. The security value of the fence in this location should be balanced with the prejudice it puts the 80,000 Jews living on the other side. Both their security needs but also the political needs. Israel would be jeopardizing its right to annex Gush Etzion, if not legally, certainly from a negotiating point of view. Building it would send a very strong message of abandonment. Israel is far better off not building it. What was Yaalon thinking. Ted Belman
PM has adopted settlers’ stance against Defense Minister Ya’alon, says delighted Gush Etzion Regional Council chief
BY ELHANAN MILLER, toi, October 6, 2014,
Gush Etzion Regional Council head Davidi Perl, October 6, 2014 (photo credit: Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is stalling the construction of the security barrier south of Jerusalem out of belief that the only way to ensure Israel’s safety is a permanent Israel Defense Forces presence in the West Bank, a settler leader told The Times of Israel on Monday.
Davidi Perl, head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, said that he and other settler leaders appealed to Netanyahu against Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s decision to resume construction of the barrier that would physically separate the Etzion settlement bloc’s almost 80,000 residents from the State of Israel.
“Israel’s defense is only through an IDF presence and settlement in Judea and Samaria,” Perl said. “The prime minister definitely shares this position.”
The resumption of construction was meant to be decided by the cabinet on September 21, but a vote was postponed following the intervention of cabinet secretary Avichai Mandelblit and Likud MKs Ze’ev Elkin and Yariv Levin, Perl said. A rare coalition of Palestinians, settlers and environmentalists has been fighting the route of the barrier near the Palestinian village of Battir since 2006.
Perl told Army Radio on September 18 that he was surprised to learn that the matter was being brought before the government, since Netanyahu had promised the settlers two years earlier that construction of the barrier would be “frozen.”
“Suddenly Bibi [Netanyahu] realized that he doesn’t need to make a decision now regarding the continued construction of the fence, but only needs to answer the High Court [of Justice] regarding its [proposed] route,” Perl said. “I don’t think it will go anywhere.”
David Perl, right, with housing and construction minister Uri Ariel during a visit to Gush Etzion, April 1, 2014 photo credit: Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
Davidi Perl (right), with Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel during a visit to Gush Etzion, April 1, 2014. (photo credit: Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
The government told the High Court of Justice that it wouldn’t re-route the barrier, proposing instead to change its height and width in order to minimize harm to the environment, Perl said.
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon began constructing the barrier in June 2002, at the height of the Second Intifada, to prevent the infiltration of suicide bombers into Israel. So far, just over 62% of the planned 708-kilometer (440-mile) barrier has been completed, at an estimated cost of nearly NIS 11 billion ($3 billion) as of late 2013, according to Finance Ministry data published by Israeli NGO B’Tselem. The entire barrier has been extended very little since 2007.
Responding to Perl’s claims, a senior government official said that “the decision to build the fence in the area has not changed, but before that decision is implemented it will come once again before the government.”
Perl said he could not envision the barrier being completed “unless the security situation in the West Bank worsens.”
Netanyahu told Pope Francis following his controversial visit to the concrete wall in Bethlehem in May that the security barrier — “which has saved thousands of lives” — was essential for Israel’s security. His spokesman Mark Regev asserted in 2013 that it was not a political border, repeating the traditional stated position of Israeli governments since Sharon.
Pope Francis prays against the security barrier at Bethlehem, May 25, 2014 (photo credit: Nour Shamaly/Flash90)
Pope Francis prays against the security barrier at Bethlehem, May 25, 2014. (photo credit: Nour Shamaly/Flash90)
But Perl insisted that the security argument was dispelled by the recent Gaza operation; while the political argument voiced by Regev was simply “a lie,” contradicted by past statements of Justice Minister Tzipi Livni who admitted to planning the barrier with Sharon as a future political border.
“We’ve all seen the results in Gaza [which is surrounded by a fence — E.M.],” Perl said. “A fence doesn’t contribute [to security]; it hampers our ability to operate inside Palestinian cities, to protect the State of Israel, to prevent terror. In Judea and Samaria there’s almost no terror, because the IDF is here. The IDF is not in Gaza, and we’re really getting it from Gaza.”
By constructing the security barrier west of the Etzion Bloc, Perl argued, Netanyahu would effectively be demarcating the future borders of Israel to the detriment of the settlers, a move he is uninterested in carrying out.
“The barrier serves no purpose,” Perl concluded.
Read more: Netanyahu stalling security barrier construction, settler leader claims | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-stalling-security-barrier-construction-settler-leader-claims/#ixzz3FSf66IvL
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@ bernard ross:
Yes. More or less.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
yamit82 Said:
…
So far they dont appear really drawn into syria and Iraq except to protect the kurds. It is convenient to send ones radical muslims to fight and die in the desert, why upset a good thing? In fact, setting up recruiting orgs would be a good idea…..perhaps they are already doing that.
@ the phoenix:
I see said the blind man 🙂
ArnoldHarris Said:
dont understand this comment unless you are referring to the US dhimmi Jews and the bought and extorted Israeli leadership? Is this the same as my usual reference to the Jews in the diaspora being in a Stockholm syndrome?
@ bernard ross:
No, Bernard. The war between our Jewish nation and the Jewish state, is not against the various governments of the liberal West. The real war is a protracted conflict that must be maintained against the influence of all the weak and cringing Jews who beg those non-Jewish governments and non-Jewish cultures to accept Jews in some form of protected status as permanent dependents whom such relationships lead to lord and master relationships.
I practice exactly what I preach. I rarely discuss authentic Judaism — including the Jewish nationalist vital component — with non-Jews. The fact is, I don’t really give a damn what they think of me or the rest of the Jewish nation. In any case, I have no interest whatsoever in ecumenicism, which at its best can lead only to watered-down versions of Judaism and probably Christianity as well. One of the most useful things I learned from Rav Meir Kahane is the value of separation of the Jewish nation and the authentic Jewish idea from all others.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ bernard ross:
As the weeks turn into months, and the months turn into years, those of us still in the forum can surely detect certain “signature statements” made by different commenters.
For instance, to whom can we attribute these?
– “Stupid Jews!”
– “Pay them to leave” …… ( 🙂 🙂 🙂 )
– “Israel should nuke ________ ”
It is in THAT spirit of exasperation that I thought Eric was right..
🙂
@ ArnoldHarris:
@ bernard ross:
ISIS Will Try for Tunisia Next
Tunisia is one night’s rapid sail from Italy and the situation there is beginning to resemble that of Iraq and Syria.
ArnoldHarris Said:
the exporting of the hostiles beyond Israels borders will make it the problem of others rather than Israels. Once outside the most they can be is a foreign enemy to be liquidated as opposed to an internal 5th column to be tried and jailed or suffered as now.
ArnoldHarris Said:
Agreed, but it appears that the real war is between Israel and its so called allies in the west who continue to restrain Israel and swindle her into giving away the Jewish homeland in order to appease their energy suppliers who give them bribes, grants etc. However, Israeli leadership has always appeared to me to be more accommodating than necessary with the various western swindlers.
the phoenix Said:
what was he right about?
The only measure of security that Israel can maintain along its eastern frontier is to take steps to make certain no sovereignty other than that of the Jewish State of Israel can ever be permitted in the lands west of the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the land rift southward to the Gulf of Eilat.
Israel’s security status described above can be attained and maintained solely by outright annexation of the entirety of Area C on the Oslo agreements map, wherein the Jewish population of 400,000 vastly outnumbers, by many multiples, the scattered Arab population areas.
Once that step is taken, and the scattered Area B villages are placed under the same status as the present-day Area C, all that will be left for direct rule of Fatah will be the seven or eight relatively large cities.
When that status is achieved by Israel, it will be relatively easy for Jerusalem to disengage from Fatah and work up separate local autonomy agreements with the blood-relations clans (hamulas) and notable urban families, which, historically, have served as the local semi-independent rulers of those communities. It should not be doubted that the leaderships of those bodies will never turn down their shares of the cash that presently lines the pockets and offshore bank accounts of the thoroughly corrupt leadership of Fatah.
The strategic principle here is obvious: Increase the strength and unity of the Jewish nation and the Jewish state, while simultaneously eliminating any Arab gang from achieving central control among the Arab populace.
And in addition, the strategy should incorporate an ongoing system of payments for bribes needed to permanently export some 50000 to 100000 Arabs from Israel to Europe. Let become Europe’s problem and no longer that of the Jewish nation and the Jewish state.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ bernard ross:
@ the phoenix:
Not much new here all past admins have tried to do similar in one way or another. In the past they usually used carrot and stick approach. I don’t see any carrots offered this time.
Yet they know who they are dealing with and with BB they figure that no carrots are needed just the stick and they know BB will capitulate….. Masters always grow to hate their submissive vassals and BB plays supplicant compliant vassal to perfection.
That’s OK fine with me maybe just maybe he will suddenly grow a pair. I doubt it but this is the Land of miracles!!! 🙂
@ bernard ross:
To say that this is OUTRAGEOUS does not even begin to describe it…
At the end it will turn out that Eric R was right all along!
perhaps he was thinking of bowing to this
Obama and the west are telling the Jews where they are allowed to live in Jerusalem and israel….. telling the Jews the limits and boundaries of their ghetto.
@ yamit82:
Couldn’t agree more with the above comment.
Mr. Netanyahu!
!!!!!!
Israel should tear down the security barrier. The only positive thing it has produced for Israel is that it has reduced auto and agricultural theft. It has never really prevented terror attacks and became a DE-facto border demarcation. Since the IDF and Shabak control the west bank pretty well and since the barrier is in constant disrepair and has more holes in it than Swiss cheese better not to waste more scarce funds on additions. The barrier has become psychologically a placebo and a political statement of surrender by the IDF and the GOI. Bad idea from the start and Gaza Tunnels and rockets have shown that one can tunnel under the wall and shoot over it with near impunity.
Tear that ugly structure down asap.
Hmmm…. Good cop, bad cop routine?