Havat Gilad
Bnai Elim participates in a twinning program. The organization adopted a community Havat Gilad in Samaria and will be posting all matters regarding that community. Bnai Elim encourages other organizations to adopt other communities. For a full list go to www.yeshuv.org
According to American policy, this beautiful community needs to be demolished to appease Arabs. Since Arab Muslim's dream is the total annihilation of Israel, destroying each town only brings pleasure to them. We have to unite and say "No more communities should be demolished inside Israel. Jews have all the rights to build as much as they need inside Israel." It is absurd for foreign countries to tell Israel what to do. How America would feel if Israel condemned that United States building on occupied territories once belonging to Indian population. While Indians are indigenous people to America, Arabs are foreigners and there never was a country called Palestine.
Ya'alon calls on state to drop 'illegal' qualifier from outposts
By Chaim Levinson
Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon attacked the State Prosecution yesterday during a tour by four ministers of illegal West Bank outposts.
"I saw that the prosecution's responses to the High Court of Justice [on petitions against the outposts] do not reflect the government's position," he said while visiting the Havat Gilad outpost. "I hope this situation will be corrected."
Asked how this disconnect is possible, he replied, "it comes to the prosecution from the Defense Ministry, which is used to carrying out the previous government's policy."
"We need to eradicate the term 'illegal outposts,'" Ya'alon added. "These are communities that were established with the state's encouragement, yet the legal definition has made them illegal."
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who was also on the tour, made similar comments. "Every community that the government established and financed is legal," he said. "We have to speak the truth: It is impossible to say this is illegal." "Honing" this message, he added, is the best way to combat a highly critical report on the outposts prepared a few years ago by government attorney Talia Sasson.
Both ministers were responding to settler complaints that whenever leftist organizations petition the High Court against an outpost, the prosecution replies that the outpost is indeed illegal and that demolition orders have been issued against it. "With responses like that, the court isn't left with any room to decide," noted Pinchas Wallerstein, secretary general of the Yesha Council of settlements. The settlers argued that instead, the state should say the outposts were in the middle of the approval process and would receive final approval soon. That, they said, would deter petitioners from even going to court, lest by so doing they actually hasten the approval process. Ya'alon said he had discussed this issue with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised that Defense Minister Ehud Barak would look into it.
Associates of Barak responded that the minister's policy is to "uphold the law," both on the ground and in responses to the High Court. The ministers also visited the ruins of Homesh, one of four northern West Bank settlements evacuated (along with the entire Gaza Strip) under the 2005 disengagement. There, Ya'alon gave a brief lecture on the strategic importance of the site, from which much of Israel is visible. "There is no doubt that the disengagement gave a tailwind not only to terror, but also to jihadist Islam," he added. "The withdrawals strengthened the jihadists. We also saw from Fatah's convention [earlier this month] that it has not given up the 'phased plan' [for Israel's destruction]." Asked whether Israel should therefore return to Homesh, Ya'alon said, "we need to consider it." Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz added that Jews have a right to live anywhere in the Land of Israel, while Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein said he hoped to see the first settlers returning to Homesh under this government.
Havat Gilad (or the Gilad farm) was establish 5 years ago on privately owned land belonging to Moshe Zar, after the murder of his son Gilad nearby by Arab terrorists. Gilad Zar was the civilian security chief for the Jewish communities of Shomron.
Although the farm is located on the Zar family's private property, it has been considered an un-authorized outpost. As result of that classification all building, roads and infrastructure on the farm have been at the expense of its residents with no government aid.
Over the past five years the farm run by Ittai Zar (young son of Moshe Zar) has grown into a farming village with 15 families and 40 Yeshiva students. Ittai runs a prefab building company on site which employs many of the town's men.
Although the farm is located on the Zar family's private property, it has been considered an un-authorized outpost. As result of that classification all building, roads and infrastructure on the farm have been at the expense of its residents with no government aid.
Over the past five years the farm run by Ittai Zar (young son of Moshe Zar) has grown into a farming village with 15 families and 40 Yeshiva students. Ittai runs a prefab building company on site which employs many of the town's men.
In order to register the town's children in school in nearby Shavi Shomron, Mayor Mesika has successfully classified Havat Gilad as a neighborhood of that bigger town (about 15 minutes away). The Ministry of Education is now willing to bus the Havat Gilad children to school at Shavi Shomron.
