In honor of the jubilee celebrations marking fifty years since the liberation of Judea and Samaria, one regional council in Judea and Samaria announced a new project aimed at bringing thousands of Europeans to Israel for PR and touring excursions.
2017 year marks half a century since the liberation of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Judea, and Samaria in 1967. Many regional councils in Judea and Samaria, with the support of government offices, will celebrate this date with various special projects.
The left-wing organizations are not ignoring this date either, investing millions of shekels to take advantage of this opportunity in order to launch a delegitimization campaign against the settlement movement.
The Har Hevron Regional Council has definitely noticed the extreme left-wing European organizations have marked the region as a weak point, due to the ratio of the large expanse of land compared to the relatively small number of residents populating it. Thus, they are actively pursuing their goal of undermining the Israeli hold on this area by promoting various initiatives.
The area of Har Hevron spans across one million dunams of land, including hundreds of thousands of dunams which are considered officially-declared government land. During the years following the Six Day War, the State requested the land be mapped out and classified as either private land or government-owned land, but the process was halted mid-way and thousands of dunams were left classified as “survey lands.” Over the course of the years, the Arabs spread out onto these lands, building hundreds of illegal homes on them, which the courts are having difficulty evacuating today.
Har Hevron Regional Council Head Yochai Demeri said, “For years now, groups of left-wing activists have been arriving every Saturday near Jewish communities in Har Hevron, with the intention of stirring up action and evoking a show from ‘rowdy’ settlers who will prove their claims of violence and conquest in the settlements on Israel’s part.
“Ad Kan (Enough is Enough), a pro-Israel organization, has successfully uncovered the modus operandi of some of these extreme left-wing activists who are funded by European entities.”
In Har Hevron, a decision was recently reached to fight back, by appointing their own PR ambassador who will operate in Europe. The man chosen for the job was Vincenzo Saladino, a resident of Italy, who will be involved in bringing PR delegations and tourists to Har Hevron to see the truth with their own eyes regarding what is actually going on in the region.
Saladino, who recently visited Har Hevron himself, enlisted his many connections and contacted several evangelical groups. In May 2017, the first group of dozens of leaders from all over the world will be landing in Israel on a pilot tour, in order to prepare for future visits to Har Hevron with their entire communities.
In preparation for the May tour, a meeting was held this week at Israel's Foreign Ministry.
Participating in this meeting were Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) and Har Hevron Council's Executive Director, Foreign desk Head, and Saladino. During the meeting, Hotovely agreed to the project leaders' request and said she is happy that thousands of tourists will be coming to Har Hevron to become acquainted with the land of the Bible and see the true reality without the filters from biased groups.
She also said she would be happy to meet with the community leaders when they come to Israel for the upcoming PR tour