Three mobile homes were removed overnight, with no resistance, from the outpost Bnei Adam and placed in the community of Kokhav Yaakov, near Psagot and Tel Tzion. The families that had been living in them remained in Bnei Adam.
The Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, and its settlement arm, Amanah, see the move as a victory of sorts, in that the Civil Administration did not destroy the caravans, as it had threatened to do. Instead, the structures will be used in another growing Jewish community in southern Shomron, north of Jerusalem.
Opponents of the move, however, including Itamar Ben-Gvir of Hevron, see the “relocation” as another small step towards what he feels is the government’s goal to thin out the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria into “settlement blocs” – thus making way for a Palestinian state in the rest of the area.
“The Yesha Council continues to repeat the mistakes of the past,” Ben-Gvir said, “and does not learn its lessons. The weak agreements it makes with representatives of the regime project a message of weakness and collapse.”
Families Don't Oppose
The families living in the three caravans, however, did not oppose the move. It took them a few days to decide on their final position; they vacillated between accepting the opinion of Rabbi Chaim Druckman, who said that they should not oppose the removal, and that of Yesha settlement veteran Daniella Weiss and her supporters, who strongly opposed it. Weiss consulted with Rabbi Moshe Levinger of Hevron, expecting that he would oppose the move as well, but he opined that the final decision must rest with the residents of Bnei Adam.
Two Weeks Ago, Near-Destruction Led to Compromise
The story began two weeks ago, when Civil Administration bulldozers arrived on the isolated hilltop, northeast of Jerusalem in the Judean Desert, and poised to destroy the outpost’s three newest caravans. Binyamin Regional Council head Avi Roeh arrived on the scene and managed to reach a compromise, wherein the expensive structures would be left intact, but would be removed and relocated to another Jewish town.
The Supreme Court then allowed several days for the agreement to be executed.
Last night (Wednesday), more than a week after the Supreme Court deadline expired, the caravans were removed, bringing this particular chapter of the long-running Judea and Samaria saga to an end.
Several other families live in the six-year-old start-up neighborhood of Bnei Adam, which has a wooden synagogue and other structures as well. Adam, the "parent" town, now has 1,200 families, and Kokhav Yaakov has nearly 500 - almost as many as its nearby sister, Tel Tzion.