'Bibi: Don't be Blass' puppy'
'Bibi: Don't be Blass' puppy'Israel news photo courtesy of Women in Green

Women in Green activists are “greeting” visiting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday with support for Migron, whose residents he has let down by not fighting their expulsion.

He is expected in Efrat, the largest community in Gush Etzion, located only ten minutes from Jerusalem, as part of his visits to schools on the first day of the new school year.

Women in Green activists Natia Matar and Yehudit Katsover placed slogans on the highway to Efrat referring to Deputy Attorney General Mike Blass, who refused to back a decision by government ministers in favor of 17 Migron families whose land was legally bought from alleged Palestinian Authority owners.

He concluded that despite the purchase, they would have to be expelled along with more than 30 other families. All of the land of Migron was thought to have been purchased years ago, but Peace Now successfully challenged the land transfers. The court ruled against Migron because the land was not registered as state land, even though there was no proof that Arabs ever owned the land.

“Bibi! Don’t be Mike Blass’ lapdog ! Efrat and Gush Etzion support Migron,” exhorted some of the hundreds of posters hung on Highway 60 overnight.

With regard to the choice of Gush Etzion schools for the Prime Minister's traditional-first-day-of-school visit,, Matar and Katsover said, “This visit has a dubious message. On the one hand, these communities are being supported, but on the other hand, at the same time, forces are gathering in preparation for the eviction of Migron. Netanyahu is the king of double-messages.

“Women in Green, along with the residents of Efrat and Gush Etzion, haven’t been fooled and will greet the Prime Minister with the posters.

“The people of Migron weren’t fooled and are currently still refusing to abandon the Land of Israel. Unlike the Prime Minister, the people of Migron are not afraid of Mike Blass, a clerk who was not elected by the public, yet seems to have taken over the reins of power. The clerk is not the problem, but rather the weakness of the Prime Minister, who seems to fear applying the policies he declared and that were brought forth in the Edmond Levy report.”

The Levy Report was authored by three legal experts, including former High Court Justice Edmund Levy, and concluded that Israel is not an “occupier” and that Jews have a legal right to live in Judea and Samaria.

Katsover and Matar also criticized the government for extending a separation wall that they said “will cut off the continuity between Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba Hevron and Eastern Gush Etzion”.

In addition, the government has granted permits for the construction of 550 housing units for Palestinian Authority Arabs between the Jewish communities of Alon Shvut and Kibbutz Rosh Tzurim, creating a security danger for Jews traveling on the road as well as promoting a demographic change that favors the Palestinian Arabs.

“The implication of the construction of a large Arab settlement in the heart of Gush Etzion is the destruction of the Gush,” Matar and Katsover said.