The Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Gershon Mesika, who tore up the construction freeze order that was delivered to him, hinted Monday that some residents may not obey the order. “As a Regional Council we have to obey the rule of law,” he said, but he told Arutz Sheva's radio news magazine that he could not vouch for what local residents or communities would do, or for “what the people of Israel would do.”
"These are the rules of the game,” he commented.
Mesika said that the council heads in Judea and Samaria would convene a meeting Wednesday in order to decide how to respond to the government's decision. “Public steps are needed against these anti-Semitic measures,” he said. If a decree forbidding Jews from building homes were issued in Canada, he explained, it would be considered anti-Semitic.
Mesika said he recommends carrying out acts of protest, as well as political actions and “calling all of the Likud's ministers and Knesset members and making it clear to them that if they do not act they will not be able to find us on election day.” Mesika, who is a Likud member himself, added: “The leader of my party disappoints me, and others are going along with him, but in personal conversations they tell me that they know this is a faulty path and that they expect us to act.”
It's not just about Judea and Samaria
"On Wednesday, at the plenary session, we will make decisions that concern all of Judea and Samaria. It is not a matter of the Shomron or Binyamin. It is a matter of the entire population,” he said, and mentioned the Arabs' demands to immigrate into “smaller Israel” as well. “The Palestinians are not specifically worried by the settlements but by Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and the rest of the communities throughout the land. After all, every community was once an Arab village,” he claimed.
“The meaning of the decree is that we have no rights in Judea and Samaria, and if there are no rights in Judea and Samaria then there are no rights in the rest of the land,” he said.