Yonatan Bassi, of the religious Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in the northern Jordan Valley, has been appointed to head the newly formed Evacuation Administration. His position will be parallel to that of a government ministry's director-general. Arutz-7's Haggai Segal spoke with him today:
Q. Are you at peace with the Prime Minister's disengagement plan?
A. ... I'll tell you what the Prime Minister told me. He said that this job can be undertaken only by someone who, on the one hand, feels the great pain of the terrible uprooting of the people from their homes, but who on the other hand feels that there is no other alternative. I think that in this matter, this definition applies to me as well.
Q. Why do you think the Prime Minister has turned to you for this painful task?
A. You'll have to ask him, but it is certainly a painful mission, possibly the most painful there is. I therefore had to deliberate between turning it down and leaving the work to someone else, or taking it upon myself - with a heavy personal price, especially given the circles in which I live - knowing that I might be able to make it easier for the people involved... I spent several days of deep introspection on this matter, and I came to the conclusion that in these matters, one must not think only of himself, but rather take the broad picture into account.
Q. You are a senior member of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, a member of Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, and it may well be said that the religious kibbutzim are the glorious settlement enterprise of Religious Zionism of the 1930's, 40's, 50's, maybe even further -
A. - also the 60's and 70's.
Q. - yes, also the 60's and 70's, and even in Gush Etzion (Judea) you have some Kibbutzim. So how then can you become the chief liquidator of a parallel settlement enterprise?
A. First of all, eh, I'm not the chief liquidator [nervous chuckle], I would like to correct this. We will not deal with evacuation; the name Evacuation Authority is not a good one, and we'll change it. Our main job will be to try to provide the best solutions to all the families that will have to decide between various alternatives: do they want to continue to be farmers or not, do they want to move to a community in the Negev or to somewhere else, and the like. We will try to give each one the solution that's best for him. The [entire disengagement] is of course being coordinated by people other than me, such as Gen. Giora Eiland, others from the Justice Ministry, the Prime Minister's Office, and they are dealing with legislation, military issues, and others. Our job is just to deal with the hardest and most painful part of all, and that is the people themselves.
Q. In other words, your job is to encourage the people to leave of their own will, in exchange for compensation?
A. Not to encourage; we will turn to them -- we won't force them to negotiate with us, but we'll rather propose that they talk with us and we'll try to figure out the best alternative.
Q. Allow me to return to this once again. It's true that you were never a member of Gush Emunim [the original settlement movement for Judea, Samaria and Gaza, formed after the 1973 Yom Kippur War - ed.] but you were certainly educated on the principle that 'where the Zionist plow passes, that will mark our border' - and here we see that not only is this principle is being broken, but that you are among those promoting and advancing this trend, even if out of admirable motivations.
A. I believe that this public discourse on what I would call "geography or demography" is a long one, and it's certainly not upon me to complete it, though I am part of the Israeli public that is deliberating over it. If the State of Israel concludes that in order to be a Jewish and democratic state, it has to peel off a very large Arab population, it also must bear the heavy pain that follows. This is of course not a decision that I made, but rather the government, and I know that I won't even be able to begin my work until the Knesset passes a law regarding the compensation and the various regulations, etc. ... I assume this will pass sometime after the Knesset's summer recess. Until then, I will merely serve as a coordinator of some type for all the many government offices that are already dealing with this.
Q. You certainly must have thought about the possibility that most of the residents will not agree to take compensation, but will rather opt to remain in their homes.
A. I'll tell you what I think they're doing already. I think they're doing what Yaakov Avinu [the Patriarch Jacob] did when his brother Esav was on his way to greet him. Yaakov prepared in three ways: Prayer, Gifts, and War, i.e., he took several different approaches. On the one hand, they are preparing, legitimately, to do whatever they can in the framework of the law to resist this plan, while at the same time they are also dealing with the alternative. I think they will be smart if they do both at the same time, so as not to harm themselves.
Q. Do you mean, and perhaps the Prime Minister discussed it with you, that those who don't agree to leave on their own might not receive compensation at all?
A. There's no such thing. I don't think anyone has even thought of such a possibility.
Q... Isn't it clear to you that this disengagement will lead to other disengagements in Judea and Samaria, along the lines of, "Today Gush Katif, tomorrow Ofrah"?
A. I personally think that there is nothing that strengthens the Judea and Samaria settlement enterprise more than when we relieve and reduce the very heavy demographic pressure. But of course it could be that I am wrong. I don't think there is anyone who can say what will happen as a result. Chou en-Lai, the Prime Minister of China in the 70's, was asked his opinion on the [18th century] French Revolution, and he said that not enough time had passed for him to judge it. When you're in the middle of a historic process, it's hard to see it from a broad perspective. I would guess that whoever gives it a historic perspective now, does so based only on his own outlook.
Q. Are you at peace with the Prime Minister's disengagement plan?
A. ... I'll tell you what the Prime Minister told me. He said that this job can be undertaken only by someone who, on the one hand, feels the great pain of the terrible uprooting of the people from their homes, but who on the other hand feels that there is no other alternative. I think that in this matter, this definition applies to me as well.
Q. Why do you think the Prime Minister has turned to you for this painful task?
A. You'll have to ask him, but it is certainly a painful mission, possibly the most painful there is. I therefore had to deliberate between turning it down and leaving the work to someone else, or taking it upon myself - with a heavy personal price, especially given the circles in which I live - knowing that I might be able to make it easier for the people involved... I spent several days of deep introspection on this matter, and I came to the conclusion that in these matters, one must not think only of himself, but rather take the broad picture into account.
Q. You are a senior member of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, a member of Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, and it may well be said that the religious kibbutzim are the glorious settlement enterprise of Religious Zionism of the 1930's, 40's, 50's, maybe even further -
A. - also the 60's and 70's.
Q. - yes, also the 60's and 70's, and even in Gush Etzion (Judea) you have some Kibbutzim. So how then can you become the chief liquidator of a parallel settlement enterprise?
A. First of all, eh, I'm not the chief liquidator [nervous chuckle], I would like to correct this. We will not deal with evacuation; the name Evacuation Authority is not a good one, and we'll change it. Our main job will be to try to provide the best solutions to all the families that will have to decide between various alternatives: do they want to continue to be farmers or not, do they want to move to a community in the Negev or to somewhere else, and the like. We will try to give each one the solution that's best for him. The [entire disengagement] is of course being coordinated by people other than me, such as Gen. Giora Eiland, others from the Justice Ministry, the Prime Minister's Office, and they are dealing with legislation, military issues, and others. Our job is just to deal with the hardest and most painful part of all, and that is the people themselves.
Q. In other words, your job is to encourage the people to leave of their own will, in exchange for compensation?
A. Not to encourage; we will turn to them -- we won't force them to negotiate with us, but we'll rather propose that they talk with us and we'll try to figure out the best alternative.
Q. Allow me to return to this once again. It's true that you were never a member of Gush Emunim [the original settlement movement for Judea, Samaria and Gaza, formed after the 1973 Yom Kippur War - ed.] but you were certainly educated on the principle that 'where the Zionist plow passes, that will mark our border' - and here we see that not only is this principle is being broken, but that you are among those promoting and advancing this trend, even if out of admirable motivations.
A. I believe that this public discourse on what I would call "geography or demography" is a long one, and it's certainly not upon me to complete it, though I am part of the Israeli public that is deliberating over it. If the State of Israel concludes that in order to be a Jewish and democratic state, it has to peel off a very large Arab population, it also must bear the heavy pain that follows. This is of course not a decision that I made, but rather the government, and I know that I won't even be able to begin my work until the Knesset passes a law regarding the compensation and the various regulations, etc. ... I assume this will pass sometime after the Knesset's summer recess. Until then, I will merely serve as a coordinator of some type for all the many government offices that are already dealing with this.
Q. You certainly must have thought about the possibility that most of the residents will not agree to take compensation, but will rather opt to remain in their homes.
A. I'll tell you what I think they're doing already. I think they're doing what Yaakov Avinu [the Patriarch Jacob] did when his brother Esav was on his way to greet him. Yaakov prepared in three ways: Prayer, Gifts, and War, i.e., he took several different approaches. On the one hand, they are preparing, legitimately, to do whatever they can in the framework of the law to resist this plan, while at the same time they are also dealing with the alternative. I think they will be smart if they do both at the same time, so as not to harm themselves.
Q. Do you mean, and perhaps the Prime Minister discussed it with you, that those who don't agree to leave on their own might not receive compensation at all?
A. There's no such thing. I don't think anyone has even thought of such a possibility.
Q... Isn't it clear to you that this disengagement will lead to other disengagements in Judea and Samaria, along the lines of, "Today Gush Katif, tomorrow Ofrah"?
A. I personally think that there is nothing that strengthens the Judea and Samaria settlement enterprise more than when we relieve and reduce the very heavy demographic pressure. But of course it could be that I am wrong. I don't think there is anyone who can say what will happen as a result. Chou en-Lai, the Prime Minister of China in the 70's, was asked his opinion on the [18th century] French Revolution, and he said that not enough time had passed for him to judge it. When you're in the middle of a historic process, it's hard to see it from a broad perspective. I would guess that whoever gives it a historic perspective now, does so based only on his own outlook.