One State for one People. Thou shalt not be a victim, or perpetrator, but above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. Yasher Koach!
May 25, 2012
Ominous Deja Vu: By Moshe Feiglin
Unease. Déjà vu from Sharon's great Expulsion. It
began with an article by Hagai Segal, who depicted the insistence of
the residents of Migron not to move from their current location as a
sort of childish stubbornness; as if they were picking a fight
instead of accepting a solution. After all, Kedumim was founded
after it was moved from its original location and ultimately it grew
into an anchor settlement with satellite settlements around it. So
how dare those 'children' of Migron, who never heard of settler
leader Zambish, think otherwise?
After reading that article, I already began to feel that we lost:
Migron, Ulpana Hill, it doesn't really matter what exactly will
happen on the ground. Just like in Gush Katif, the on the ground
struggle is really just make-believe. The real decisions on the fate
of the settlements are being made in an entirely different place
where the principle has already been determined – or to be more
specific – preserved. Now it is just a question of price. The deal
is really being closed between the settler leaders with the same old
Sebastia/Kfar Maimon mentality and the Prime Minister's advisors.
I spent this week running to meetings with the Likud ministers,
trying to convince them to vote in favor of the "Ulpana Law". They
are all truly in favor of settlement. They genuinely do not want to
see it destroyed. They want to help any way they can. But somehow, I
left each meeting with a sinking feeling. Now as then, the real
battlefield is above our heads, in a completely different place.
In a lively two-hour conversation, one of the ministers analyzed the
entire scheme of considerations and pressures with which the
government is dealing. He left no stone unturned as he explained the
facts in detail and analyzed them once again. But he gave me no
answer.
When we got up to leave, I said to him, "You know, there is a
certain moment in which all the right answers are no longer
relevant. The political outcome is really not important. The
interests of A and the apprehensions of B make no difference; how C
will react and what will transpire this way or that are irrelevant.
There is a certain space that you enter, without even realizing that
you are there. But if you continue from that space to make all of
these logical calculations, you lose everything."
"That is true," said the minister (a truly brilliant man) "but we
are not in that space."
And then I understood the problem. The problem is that "we are not
in that space." And we are not there because of the same mentality
that plagued us in Gush Katif. The destruction of Migron and the
Ulpana Hill don't move us into that space: They are still being
represented by the same Yesha Council, whose very existence will
always ensure that we do not reach the space in which the settlers
and their tens of thousands of supporters will embark on a genuine
struggle to save their Land.
We all had a role to play in Gush Katif. We thought that we were
going to Kfar Maimon to battle the Expulsion. But in truth, we were
all actors in a make-believe struggle. Everything was already
decided before we started out. Our role was to play a bit with the
army. The army's role was to be sensitive and determined.
Afterwards, we cried. It was everything but a struggle. The role of
the Yesha Council was to ensure that we would never get to that
space – to the genuine struggle.
The entire settler establishment is dependent on government funding.
Even more, it is mentally dependent on the government. It is
dependent on its ability to provide the goods; to ensure that the
minister will always answer, "We are not there yet."
They refuse to understand that Judea and Samaria are "out;" that the
reality has changed since the good old days of Sebastia and Menachem
Begin. Today, an underground tunnel is being dug for a train between
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The most logical and direct route for the
tunnel is along highway 443. But that highway is in "Palestinian"
territory and thus the tunnel will tortuously wind through the hills
ascending to Jerusalem.
Judea and Samaria no longer exist in Israel's long-term plans. All
they are is a huge white blotch in the middle of the map of Israel.
This is the reality in which we have allowed the Left to corner us.
They built a political border fence in the name of security; they
created a new reality on the ground without asking anybody. All that
is left now is to slowly gnaw away at the settlements until the
opportunity for the final blow presents itself. The only new
settlement currently being built by Israel is Ruabi – for the Arabs.
True, in the midst of this strategic process, Zambish can still get
authorization for a public building here and to finish construction
that had already been approved there. But the strategic picture is
the negative of the gleeful days of Sebastia. The enticement to
remain on good terms with the establishment, the source of the Yesha
Council's power, blinds them to the necessity to fight it.
Currently, the settlement leadership is legitimizing the
establishment that strives to destroy it. This situation requires us
to fight against even the smallest blow to the settlements; to
relate to the demand to move one caravan one centimeter as if it was
the destruction of Ma'aleh Adumim. The settlers are being led to
their destruction by leadership that is incapable of understanding
reality. They will always agree to all types of arrangements; they
will always buy short term relief in exchange for long term
existence; they will always hasten the end instead of distancing it;
they will twist and turn with Begin in Migron and will bring the
bulldozers closer to the Ulpana Hill.
When Migron will G-d forbid be destroyed, or when the homes on
Ulpana Hill will be sealed or even worse (or whatever "creative
solution" they will reach there) the Yesha Council will decry the
destruction. Nobody expects otherwise. Their role is to ensure that
there will be no genuine struggle; that there will be no public
atmosphere of doing everything possible for the cause. They will
ensure that we will once again be dragged from our homes like
harmless sacks of potatoes, while the country will continue with
business as usual. Our rightist journalists will write terrible
things about Netanyahu. Our Likud members will run from one minister
to the next. The hilltop youth will continue to hate the state; our
wonderful children will sneak into Migron in the middle of the night
and wage a heroic and boring battle: Everyone will play his role in
the grand drama whose finale has already been written.
What can you do? Circumvent Zambish. If you need funding for your
settlement, turn directly to the relevant minister. Stop paying
taxes to Amanah (the settlement organization). Do not vote for a
local candidate who does not commit himself to stop funding Amanah.
Understand that what made the Expulsion possible then, is making it
possible today.
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