Israel at 64

We have just celebrated Independence Day, just a week after commemorating Holocaust Day and immediately following Remembrance Day.

For various reasons, certain sections of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community disregard the three commemorative occasions. Israel’s Arab minority evinces no special affinity to the day commemorating the destruction of European Jewry. Likewise our Arab communities either ignore Remembrance Day and Independence Day or acknowledge them in a subdued manner.

Every year our news media uncovers previously unknown stories related to Holocaust Day.

Umm al-Fahm, an Arab town in the north of Israel is probably the last place you would expect to find a Holocaust survivor. This year many Israeli news sources and even the Saudi based Al-Arabiya mentioned Leila Jabarin’s amazing story. For more than fifty years Leila hid her secret from her Muslim children and grandchildren. She never told them that she was a Jewish Holocaust survivor born in Auschwitz concentration camp.
Although her family knew she was a Jewish convert, none of them knew of her Holocaust connection.
This year, shortly before Holocaust Day Leila Jabarin, who was born Helen Brashatsky, finally sat down and told them that she too is a Holocaust survivor.

With the passage of time the number of survivors is diminishing.

Researchers in Israel and in other places have identified second generation and even third generation Holocaust syndromes. Of course they are far removed from the suffering of the people who managed to survive Hitler’s Final Solution. They are mainly behavioural traits.

On the other hand, the number of bereaved families of Israeli men and women killed in action and as the result of terrorist activities, is increasing.

This year too the dilemma of the sharp transition from the Remembrance Day to the celebrations of Independence Day is the subject of debate, an unresolved debate.

Another unresolved matter, the status of the territories is the topic of an ongoing debate. This week the crisis of the Ulpana neighbourhood at Beit El threatened the stability of our coalition government.
The Ulpana neighbourhood was founded during Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister. The neighbourhood includes 84 apartments in 14 buildings, and several caravans. In 2008 the Palestinian owners of the land on which five buildings were built petitioned the High Court of Justice, and last May the state declared that the buildings will be demolished within a year. Former Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish then announced that proceedings have been exhausted. The director of High Court petitions in the State Prosecutor's Office told the cabinet that the High Court will not accept requests for long-term delays. Another legal expert referring to the Ulpana eviction matter said, “There is no legal solution and there will be none.”
Colonel (res) Shaul Arieli is a hard man to fault. At the height of his military career he was the military commander of the Gaza Strip. Later he was the head of the peace administration in the Barak government, and some time later became one of the originators of the Geneva Peace Initiative. Earlier, he served for two years as Deputy Military Attaché to the Defence Minister. In 1995 -1997, he was head of the Interim Agreement Administration. Arieli is widely considered an expert on the demarcation of the future Israeli-Palestinian border and the route of the separation barrier. He has taken a leading role in efforts to renew Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and to ensure that Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians balance security and humanitarian considerations.

In an article entitled “Netanyahu, up to his neck in settlements” published in Yediot Ahronot this week Shaul Arieli took the prime minister to task.

“There is no government in Israel when it comes to the political future of the territories and the settlements built there. The Machpela house in Hebron, the Migron outpost, the Ulpana neighbourhood at Beit El and the dozens of other outposts and settlements all bear testimony to this fact.” Arieli is not one of the run-of the-mill government bashers. His qualifications entitle him to complain about the lack of planning regarding the territories, the preference for a “one day at a time” outlook. Furthermore, he doesn’t absolve previous governments from blame.” Netanyahu's government has joined a number of governments that preceded it, trying to hold both ends of the stick at the same time. On one hand they declare their readiness to separate from the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, on the other hand they strengthen the hold of the settlements in the territories.”

He traces the present situation to its very source; “The Alignment governments headed by Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin were the first to establish settlements, attempting to use them to fix Israel's borders. Even though these governments also bowed somewhat to the demands of settler leaders Hanan Porat and Moshe Levinger ‘to wrest the land from its [Palestinian] residents,’ as a rule they promised that the settlements would be built only around Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, described as security regions according to a strategic plan drawn up by Yigal Alon.”

Little more than the museum at Kibbutz Ginosar named in memory of Alon remains to remind us of the man who could have lead the country. The Alon Plan has become a footnote in the tomes written about the “Conflict.”

Despite the original sin of settlement building in areas where the security consideration didn’t exist the three governments Arieli mentions had a programme. Today the scope of construction in isolated settlements is larger than in the blocs which the government plans to keep in a final-status agreement.

Arieli says, "Laundering (legitimising) the outposts and building neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem allow the foreign leaders and the Palestinians the right to doubt the honesty of the government's intentions. This is because of the well-known fact that fear of the social and economic price of evacuating so large a number of settlers is a central obstacle preventing Israel from deciding on a peace agreement.

The Alignment governments originated the use of the pretext of security to gain control of private Palestinian lands for the establishment of settlements. The 1979 High Court of Justice ruling on Elon Moreh led to a decrease in the use of that pretext.

However, despite U.S. presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama having explained the need for land swaps only because of ‘demographic changes’ caused by the settlements, Netanyahu still describes settlements as "security" needs. He also refuses to compensate the Palestinians for the prospective annexation of settlements with similar territory from Israel, and in this way has reneged on the basic principle of the negotiations - "the 1967 lines as the basis for a border and exchange of territories with a ratio of 1:1."

Veteran journalist Akiva Eldar wrote in Haaretz,

“The Ulpana neighbourhood was born and raised in sin. Ironically, it was established in 1999 during Ehud Barak's term in the Prime Minister's Office. Yes, the same Barak who is being denigrated by his fellow cabinet members for daring to uphold the High Court of Justice order to demolish the buildings in the neighbourhood. The first stop-work order there was issued on September 27, 1999, and through 2003 additional, "final" stop-work and demolition orders were issued for each of Ulpana's "normative" buildings. As usual in the land of the settlers, illegal construction continued for more than eight years under the noses of the authorities.”

Eldar continues with the description of the forged sale document claiming ownership of the land on which Ulpana is built. The land belongs to Palestinians in Dura al-Kara. Referring to the High Court ruling Eldar says,

“During the hearing on the petition, the state prosecutor said it was the Beit El Development Company that built and filled the homes with "renters." In other words, none of the residents of the five buildings to be torn down is the owner or even a protected tenant.

Going by accepted norms of the enlightened world, the Ulpana neighbourhood is not the only illegitimate child of Beit El. The entire community was founded on an unaccepted norm that goes by the name ‘temporary occupation orders.’ Over the years, the community spread north beyond the limits of those orders, onto the private lands of Dura al-Kara's residents. In a normative society, individuals and organisations that turn land theft and forgery into norms end up in jail. In Israel, their names are known to cabinet ministers and Knesset members who turn them into martyrs while the State Prosecutor's Office abandons cases against them. “

On Sunday it was reported that Attorney General Weinstein was exploring legal options in an effort to prevent the eviction of the Ulpana settlers. However, senior legal sources estimated that the State Prosecutor's Office will have a hard time finding a solution. The State has pledged to evict the neighbourhood in the past, on the basis that it is built on private (Palestinian) land.

In an interview with Haaretz President Shimon Peres said he was not seeking to extend his term in office. In the same interview the president focused more on negotiations with the Palestinians than the extended presidency prospect. “I've had no small number of conversations with Mahmoud Abbas. All of them were with the prime minister's knowledge. He knows all the details. Based on these conversations, I'm convinced we could have achieved peace with Abbas. He's a worthy partner and can deliver the goods." It will take more than Shimon Peres’ faith in Mahmoud Abbas to revive the moribund peace process.

In an op-ed article in the New York Times entitled “Peace Without Partners,”

Ami Ayalon, Orni Petruschka and Gilead Sher outlined an entirely different approach to peace and the territories. Two of the authors are well known to the peace camp. Ami Ayalon is a former commander of the Israeli Navy and head of the Israeli domestic security agency (GSS). Gilead Sher was a peace negotiator and chief of staff to the Israeli prime minister from 1999 to 2001. Orni Petruschka lacks the same qualifications. Nonetheless, he serves as co-chairman of Blue White Future movement together with Ayalon and Sher. He is described as a high-tech entrepreneur and a social investor and activist. They wrote, “For three years, attempts at negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership have failed because of a lack of trust. It now seems highly unlikely that the two sides will return to negotiations — but that does not mean the status quo must be frozen in place.

Israel doesn’t need to wait for a final-status deal with the Palestinians. What it needs is a radically new unilateral approach: It should set the conditions for a territorial compromise based on the principle of two states for two peoples, which is essential for Israel’s future as both a Jewish and a democratic state.

Israel can and must take constructive steps to advance the reality of two states based on the 1967 borders, with land swaps — regardless of whether Palestinian leaders have agreed to accept it. Through a series of unilateral actions, gradual but tangible changes could begin to transform the situation on the ground.”

I doubt if the settlers will be rushing to join the new initiative.

In the meantime we are celebrating the sixty fourth year of our independence.

Chag Sameach

Beni 26^th of April, 2012.