The Regavim organization has issued the following clarification:
"Soon after the Maaleh Paula outpost was dismantled and a number of activists arrested at the site, Regavim released a tongue-in -cheek statement stressing that prejudicial, selective law enforcement - against Jews only - is far worse than no law enforcement at all."
"From the outset, the point of building the Maaleh Paula 'outpost' was to highlight the absurdity of the situation in the Negev: Bedouin citizens of Israel build over 3500 illegal structures every year in the Negev, and only a tiny fraction (usually small, insignificant agricultural or livestock sheds) are demolished, whereas Jews, who never build illegally in the Negev, are held to the microscopic letter of the law."
"The establishment of Maaleh Paula was a publicity stunt - to spur a discussion of the rampant illegal construction that is devouring the Negev, and the government's shocking double standards."
"The fact that Regavim had to go to battle to ensure that the government's new Five Year Plan for the Negev includes a budget and guidelines for enforcement is an outrage - but at least Regavim won this battle. Perhaps 'Maaleh Paula' was a means of getting the enforcement chapter up and running without delay."
"Today's events in the Negev were much along the lines of what Regavim did several years ago on the roads of Judea and Samaria, hanging Palestinian flags to show people precisely where the proposed Palestinian state would be, right outside Jewish communities' entrance roads and cutting off the access between them and to Jerusalem. Then, as now, there was some puzzlement on the part of donors and supporters, but eventually they understood that the intention was to provoke the public, to force the issue to the top of the public agenda- even if it meant making people angry - in order to spotlight absurdities that fly in the face of our shared national interests."