The future of all liberated areas outside Jerusalem is uncertain. So said MK Gideon Ezra, a former Cabinet minister in both Ariel Sharon’s and Ehud Olmert’s governments and now a Knesset Member of Kadima, during a tour by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s subcommittee on Judea and Samaria Affairs.
The tour was a cooperative venture organized by Likud MKs Ze’ev Elkin (the subcommittee chairman) and Tzipi Hotobeli, and by the Shomron Regional Council. Nearly all the other members of the subcommittee attended: Ezra, Michael Ben-Ari, and Nissim Ze’ev.
Asked by Israel National News TV’s Yoni Kempinsky if he supports the proposed compromise with the 45 families living in Migron, Ezra said, “I am always in favor of agreements. But to bring the residents of Migron to Adam, whose future in the future final-status agreement is also not clear, could be a waste of money. It is not logical that they should have to be evacuated twice.”
The “compromise” with Migron -- which Arabs and Peace Now claim was built on land belonging to private Arab owners, though the land has seemingly not been occupied for centuries -- involves the relocation of the 45 Jewish families there to new homes in Adam, a growing community just north of Jerusalem. As Ezra pointed out, however, Adam, too, is located in areas liberated by Israel during the Six Day War of 1967.
The subcommittee members visited thriving communities that were abruptly categorized as “unauthorized” upon the publication of the Sasson Report, which was commissioned several years ago by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Its author was Attorney Talia Sasson - who, it was pointed out by Shomron Regional Council Chairman Gershon Mesika, ran for a spot on the ultra-left Meretz party list in the last elections.
Among the towns the MKs visited were Bruchin, Rechelim, and the Givat HaYovel neighborhood in Eli - and they held an official subcommittee session in Nofei Nechemiah.
In Bruchin, for instance, the MKs learned that though the Housing Ministry built 50 houses there, and started work on 50 more, and though it is missing only one signature for final approval – that of Defense Minister Ehud Barak – the town is listed officially as “unauthorized.”
In Rechelim, the 35 families have 150 children. Though the Education Ministry has approved a new kindergarten, the Defense Ministry is holding up its approval - for solely political reasons, town officials say. "The defense minister's representative was here himself," said Mesika, "and said he would never send his grandchildren to a kindergarten as crowded as this one."
MK Hotobeli said, "The first goal is to [realize] that the outposts are not what you think; they are not stolen and were not established illegally. They are places authorized by many governments throughout the years."