The Netanyahu government’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has declared war against what the government terms illegal Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and has issued warning orders to residents in nine of the small towns on scattered hilltops. More orders to evacuate or face eviction may be issued for the remaining 13 communities.
The latest action comes several days after Defense Minister Barak ordered the destruction of Maoz Esther, which has been torn down and rebuilt several times. The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) may try to counter the planned destruction by erecting more hilltop villages.
Barak, who also is chairman of the Labor party, declared last week that his order to tear down Maoz Esther was unrelated to demands by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. However, the timing may be more than coincidental. Barak acted one day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from his talks with President Obama.
He apparently has been waiting for the right time to carry out his plan after having vowed as far back as two years ago to expel hundreds of Jewish residents if they do not leave their homes voluntarily. The threat places the Yesha Council in the crosshairs of the mass media, which generally supports removing the communities as a "matter of law."
The government terms them illegal because of an agreement between the Sharon government and the Bush administration that no new Jewish communities would be established in Judea and Samaria after September 2001.
The nine communities targeted by the order include Mitzpeh Yitzhar, adjacent to the town of Yitzhar in northern Samaria and parts of which have been destroyed in the past. The other communities are Mitzpeh Assad, Ramat Gilad, Givat HaRoeh, Ma'aleh Rehavam, Yitzhar South, Mitzpeh Lachish and two communities in the Hevron area – one between Kiryat Arba and Hevron and the other, Chazon David, in the southern Hevron Hills.
Prime Minister Netanyahu may be using the destruction of the communities as a means to show the Obama administration that he is willing to reduce a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria while maintaining the right to continue to build in government-approved communities. President Obama has called for a total halt to all construction in Jewish towns. It is not clear if American officials include neighborhoods in Jerusalem, such as Ramot, Talpiot, Gilo and French Hill, all of which former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to last year as “settlements.”
The Defense Ministry also is considering legal action against the heads of regional councils who backed construction of the disputed communities.
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, also a Labor party Knesset Member and a devotee of Barak, recently told Voice of Israel government radio that removing the hilltop “outposts” is a “central issue.”
He added, "I admit that there was an ambiguity in the past but now we are unequivocal. There is a clear standing order to ... remove every outpost. There is a constant struggle in which we remove outposts and they (the settlers) return them to build them ... it happens all the time."
Hilltop activists have warned, "Shortly after the outpost is destroyed, all structures must be rebuilt and efforts must be made to double the outpost within days."
They also plan to escalate a campaign that charges the government with prejudice by targeting Jews while largely ignoring thousands of “unrecognized villages” that were illegally built by Bedouins on government land that they confiscated. The Bedouins claim that the land is theirs by ancestry.
Elisha Meidan, one of the founders of the hilltop town of Avigail in the southern Hevron Hills, told Voice of Israel Monday morning that the term “illegal” communities conjures up false images of violent youth.
“We are quiet and normal people," he said on the “It’s All Talk” program. Median also explained that although the government did not specifically issue a permit for Avigail, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “knew exactly about the location and encouraged us.”
Avigail has grown to 50 residents, including children, and many of the men are former combat and special forces soldiers who are true Zionists, he said.
He stated that he does not believe the government will destroy Avigail but thinks that ”if it does, we will fight the order without violence.”