Coteret

UPDATED AT BOTTOM: December 7 2009 – A day late, Yediot puts two and two together

Since the announcement last week of the “settlement freeze,” Israel has witnessed an escalating settler rebellion. Most of the action has been civil disobedience, which I will not condemn as a matter of principle, despite the fact that its organizers’ salaries are largely paid from my taxes. But past experience and IDF warnings indicate that we can expect a surge in “price tag” attacks against Palestinians.

A news item in this morning’s (December 6 2009) Yediot surveys the mood among West bank settlers and ends with the following passage

“We’ll expel the soldiers from the settlements”

Zvi Zinger,Yediot, December 6 2009 [page 4]

[...]

The radical right is also adding oil to the fire. An article in its internet-distributed pamphlet “The Jewish Voice” includes a call to “execute targeted operations against the evildoers, invade Civil Administration offices and ransack them, as well as operate violently [sic] against the Palestinians, deepen the refusal to serve in the army and not recognize Israeli courts.”

The article was written by Rabbi Yosef Elitzur of the “Od Yosef Hai” yeshiva in Yitzhar.

Rabbi Yosef Elitzur and the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva have recently emerged from obscurity with the publication of the “Handbook for the killing of Gentiles” in early November. A few days later, Haaretz reported that the Yeshiva was generously funded by the Government of Israel.

Rabbi Elitzur

The excerpt looks like an editorial hatchet job. The style indicates a paraphrased summary, despite the double quotation marks. I want to read the original. Read more…

RELATED POSTS:  Yediot: Settlers quickly find ‘freeze’ workaround | Settler attacks on Palestinians upset even the most chauvinistic Israeli pundits | [Video] IDF “concerned” that soldiers are participating in settler “revenge attacks” [but doing next to nothing about it]

Yaron London, an elder statesmen of Israeli journalism, television personality and respected intellectual, has a reputation for saying what others think. In his Yediot column this morning (November 30 2009) he had this to say about law enforcement on settlers in the West Bank

Israel’s governments have accustomed us to the sense that the rebellion of the annexers of the occupied territories is a law of nature, or perhaps a version of “cops and robbers,” in which the cops are not real police officers and the robbers no more than good boys disguised as criminal offenders.  Youthful folly should not be punished, perhaps only gently reprimanded, and the policemen and soldiers will quarrel with them cautiously.  Some of the buildings will be demolished, and then rebuilt, demolished, and so on and so forth, until the spineless jellyfish known as the state is worn down, and they will remain standing.

Full translation after the jump.

Read more…

RELATED POST: Yediot column: Israel “the spineless jellyfish” has no will to stand up to lawless settlers

Settlers lay mock foundations

Zvi Singer and Itamar Eichner, Yediot, November 30 2009 [page 6]

Immediately after the prime minister announced a settlement construction freeze, settlers in a number of settlements rushed to lay fake foundations in areas that had been cleared for construction. Their goal was to make the sites in question appear in the aerial photographs to be taken by the Defense Ministry as if they contained buildings in mid-construction, the foundations of which were already fully laid.

The settlers, it appears, knew in advance about the Defense Ministry’s intention to take aerial photographs thanks to a document that fell into their hands, and they prepared in advance accordingly. The construction freeze orders stipulate the cancellation of construction permits that had already been issued for thousands of housing units because the foundations for those housing units were not laid. Read more…

Americans raid settlements

Ben Kaspit, Maariv, November 25 2009 [page 5]

The Americans are taking off the gloves and going into the field: In the past few days, American diplomats, who apparently belong to envoy George Mitchell’s team, have started to travel through Judea and Samaria and tour the Jewish settlements there, holding interviews and inquiries with the local leaders and other settlers, in order to get the feel of the situation on the ground.

The first of these diplomats arrived on Monday in the settlement Efrat.  This is Cindy-Noga Trin, a diplomat stationed at the US consulate in Jerusalem, who appears to belong to envoy Mitchell’s team.  She visited Efrat, a large Jewish settlement, and interviewed Council Chairman Oded Revivi at length, and four additional residents (one of whom is a relative of Ari Harrow, the prime minister’s bureau chief).

Trin arrived in a bulletproofed van, accompanied by a driver and security guard, and was businesslike and polite.  She took out a thick notebook and filled it diligently.  Every word that came out of the mouth of Council Chairman Revivi, a lieutenant colonel in reserves, who was elected to his post about a year ago, was written down and filed.  “We want to get a feel on the situation on the ground,” she said to Revivi, “my next stops are Kiryat Arba, and then Tapuah junction.”

The conversation was similar to a cross-examination.  The bizarre part of the event was when the US diplomat repeatedly asked Revivi, “why aren’t you continuing to build?” and “who is preventing you from building?”  Revivi explained that Efrat had not received building permits for the past eight years.

Trin persisted: “The city is supposed to reach 30,000 residents, you have master plans here, who is stopping construction?  And how long haven’t you received permits?”  Revivi explained: “Here, in Givat Hazayit, in the heart of the settlement, there is no expansion of the perimeter line, there are plans here for 400 housing units, the Housing Ministry completed the infrastructure at an investment of millions, but the land is not being marketed.”  Trin asked, “why?” and Revivi said that he had no idea, and showed her two other hills (Givat Hadagan and Givat Hatamar) with the same problem.

Trin took an interest in the way of life in the settlement, the sources of livelihood and the relations with the Arab neighbors.  Revivi planned a tour for her in the nearby village, Wadi Nis, and coordinated the matter with the Arab residents, but Trin’s appearance with a large bulletproofed vehicle and security guards caused the village residents to change their minds.

Revivi told the American diplomat about the good neighborly relations with the village residents.  “There is no fence between Efrat and the Arab villages.  Together with our Arab neighbors, we fought against the fence and won,” he said.  “This is the only place where Arabs and Jews demonstrated today and prevented a fence.  Our Arab neighbors have called twice to warn us against terror cells that were on their way here, and the warnings proved to be true.  We provide Wadi Nis with doctors, medicines and water, we renovate their water lines, they work here, we visit there, the relations are excellent and there are friendships and a lot of mutual help.”

Revivi told Trin that although the American initiative looked like a clever way to bypass the relationship between the governments, he was very glad for it.  “President Obama is trying to solve this conflict by means of satellite footage,” he explained.  “If he were to go out into the field, see things up close, understand that we live here with our neighbors in coexistence and study the everyday life here, he would understand the complexity of the story better.”

The meeting lasted for more than an hour, in which Cindy-Noga Trin filled a notebook in small handwriting.  The feeling, Revivi said later, was of a painstaking and detailed cross-examination.  She did not miss a word, and wrote everything down.  When she asked him who was stopping the construction, Revivi raised an eyebrow, since it is the Americans, and mainly Trin’s boss George Mitchell, who are the address for this question, but he answered nonetheless.  Afterwards, Trin met with Boaz Columbus, principal of the high school in Karmei Tzur, and with Ora Yanai and Rahel Goshen, Efrat residents who belong to the founding generation of the settlement.  The last one to be interviewed was Eve Harrow, a relative of Ari Harrow, who deals with public relations.

This surprising visit to Efrat is supposed to be the first of a series.  The Americans are descending on [the settlements] in the field.  Mitchell is determined to understand what is happening on the ground, and to compare what is happening with what he is being told.  All this is taking place a few days before Prime Minister Netanyahu’s expected announcement of a construction freeze in the settlements—an announcement that will probably not satisfy the Palestinians.  Mitchell may be trying now to rectify the errors of the past and to check what is being done on the ground before he issues statements and demands that could complicate the situation of the sides.

According to Haaretz, Israeli President Shimon Peres announced Yesterday (November 22 2009) after his meeting with Mubarak that once Israeli-Palestinian negotiations restart, Israel will freeze settlements. A closer look revealsthat he is promising something Israel is presently committed to — no new settlements, no land confiscation and evacuation of “outposts”. The headline may, however, may be indicative of a new Israeli messaging strategy — “we will freeze settlements but the Palestinians are refusing resume negotiations” — aimed at moving the ball to Palestinian court.

See this morning’s (November 23 2009) Yediot article below describing how the IDF is preparing for a settlement freeze “as part of Israel’s political preparations for a resumption of the talks with the Palestinians” and that this move “went hand in hand with President Shimon Peres’s statement yesterday in Cairo to the effect that Israel would cease all construction in the settlements upon the resumption of talks with the Palestinians.”

IDF prepares for construction freeze in settlements

Alex Fishman, Yediot, November 23 2009 [page 9]

The Defense Ministry’s legal counsel has recently finalized the preparation of military orders that enjoin a full moratorium on construction everywhere in Judea and Samaria.

The military orders were drafted in coordination with the Prime Minister’s Office as part of Israel’s political preparations for a resumption of the talks with the Palestinians. The orders that were drafted by the Defense Ministry will become “orders by the OC Central Command,” who is the sovereign over the West Bank, immediately upon a decision by the Israeli political echelon to resume talks with the Palestinian Authority.

In the course of their most recent visit to the United States, the defense minister and prime minister apprised senior American officials with whom they met, including President Barack Obama and special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, of the preparations Israel was making in advance of the possibility that talks with the Palestinians would be renewed. In the course of those meetings an Israeli commitment was made to impose a complete moratorium on construction in the settlements.

In the past number of months there has been an unprecedented boom of both legal and illegal construction across Judea and Samaria. The legal construction involves construction work on the basis of old permits that were not acted on, as well as the approximately 3,000 permits that were issued by the Defense Ministry legalizing the completion of buildings that were already in the process of being built. The settlers’ various settlement apparatuses had also prepared well in advance for the possibility of a construction freeze and for the past number of months have been making a concerted effort to build as much as possible before the OC Central Command’s order goes into effect.

Informed sources said that Israel was likely to find itself facing a strongly-worded American protest once the latter realized, by means of aerial photographs and inspections on the ground, that the actual scope of construction in Judea and Samaria exceeded the scope that had been authorized by the Israeli government as it had been reported to the them. Informed sources in the security establishment said that issuing orders enjoining a construction freeze upon the resumption of the political negotiations went hand in hand with President Shimon Peres’s statement yesterday in Cairo to the effect that Israel would cease all construction in the settlements upon the resumption of talks with the Palestinians.

UPDATES

• Novemeber 24 2009 — Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar: Netanyahu new exactly what was going on.

ORIGINAL POST

Last week’s US-Israeli crisis following the announcement of new construction in Gilo was analyzed by three of Israel’s leading political and diplomatic commentators in the Friday Political Supplements. Haaretz’s Verter and Yediot’s Barnea see bungling. Maariv’s Ben Kaspit hints at a premeditated provocation.

Haaretz’s senior political analyst, Yossi Verter writes that Netanyahu was taken completely by surprise.

On Monday evening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat contentedly in his office at the Knesset…and then Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Shimon Schiffer called, seeking the reaction of the Prime Minister’s Bureau to the Americans’ statement of opposition to some building project in East Jerusalem.

What’s this about, Netanyahu asked his people. No one knew. Netanyahu asked them to call in Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose purview includes Jerusalem. Yishai ran over from his office. That’s when they figured it out: It was about the northwestern part of the Gilo neighborhood. Netanyahu called several of the relevant players. He was told that this was strictly a technical matter, that on the following day, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Commission would be approving the construction of 900 new housing units in the neighborhood.

He knew he was about to get slapped, but it is doubtful he imagined the barrage of condemnation: from U.S. President Barack Obama, who said the construction in Gilo did not contribute to Israel’s security

[...]

Yediot’s Nahum Barnea says basically the same, but blames Netanyahu fro bad staffing decisions (full translation here.)

Netanyahu was surprised to discover this week how little he knows about what is taking place in the state he heads. He did not know about the demolition of houses in East Jerusalem. He did not know about the Jerusalem municipality decision to approve the construction of 900 housing units in Gilo. He did not know about the request of special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell to delay the approval.

When Shimon Shiffer, Yedioth Ahronoth’s political affairs correspondent, asked the Prime Minister’s Bureau to comment on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said he had no idea. Attorney Yitzhak Molcho, who was in the middle of a meeting with Mitchell in London, said that he heard of the American request only minutes earlier. He told Mitchell that he had no idea. He was concerned lest he get into trouble: Netanyahu had promised Obama full transparency, and what was emerging was muddy water.

Then it turned out that Mara Rudman, a top member of Mitchell’s team, that same day, had asked the Israeli embassy in Washington about the construction in Gilo. The request was relayed to the Prime Minister’s Bureau, but got stuck on the way. It turned out that Interior Minister Eli Yishai knew. He did not think he had to inform the prime minister.

The immediate reason for this failure is that the people with whom Netanyahu has manned his bureau are fine and good, but none of them is actually connected to the Israeli experience. They have no sources. They have no antenna. They live in a bubble, an aquarium. When Dov Weissglas was Sharon’s bureau chief, he managed by means of an interdisciplinary committee whose goal was to respond quickly and efficiently to any call from the American administration. Yoram Turbowicz, Olmert’s bureau chief, had a similar arrangement.

Maariv’s Ben Kaspit suggests that Netanyahu was purposely trying to provoke Obama.

What is really happening is that Netanyahu is trying to promote the political process with one hand, while attempting to delay it with the other.  This is a new version of a remark Ariel Sharon once made, speaking from the Likud Central Committee podium.  I am willing to help him, he said, but I do not know which of Bibi’s hands I should be helping, the right or the left.

Against this backdrop, suspicions emerged that the fact that the Americans protested the Gilo construction plan was actually leaked to Yedioth Ahronoth by members of Netanyahu’s inner circles in an attempt to make the Palestinians explode, to embarrass the Americans, and to slightly damage progress.  And thus, while Netanyahu of the big speeches talks about peace, Netanyahu of the back rooms engages in guerilla warfare.  “Only Bibi can,” Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said in a fascinating interview with Maariv’s Sofshavua Supplement.  He is right, of course.  Indeed, only Bibi can.  The only question is:  Does he want to?

This morning’s (November 17, 2009) Israeli media runs a flurry of criticism of the settlers, settlements and government inaction against them.

Yediot’s senior military analyst, Alex Fishman, who is also chairman of the Israeli Military Correspondents Chamber and hardly a bleeding heart, is appalled. In an analysis piece placed alongside news reporting on the latest chapter of the settler-soldier rebellion in West Bank, he rails

What is the greatest chutzpah? To establish, in an illegal settlement, an illegal factory that produces temporary structures for more illegal settlements. And to do so openly, in the light of day, under the nose of the government and with the knowledge of the law enforcement agencies. In fact, this is not just chutzpah. This is anarchy.

[...]

we, with our own two hands, are providing the rope that will be used as a noose for the [Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic] negotiations.

Full text of the article is below, note that also contains a wealth of previously unreported details on the issue.

Stop the anarchy

Analysis, Alex Fishman, Yediot, November 17 2009 [page 7]

What is the greatest chutzpah? To establish, in an illegal settlement, an illegal factory that produces temporary structures for more illegal settlements. And to do so openly, in the light of day, under the nose of the government and with the knowledge of the law enforcement agencies. In fact, this is not just chutzpah. This is anarchy.

Such an illegal factory for trailers exists, for example, in Havat Gilad in the southern Hebron hills. There are two other such anonymous factories in the West Bank, and this is no coincidence. It is much safer and convenient there. The law enforcement agencies are liable to stop trailers that are manufactured inside the Green Line at the crossings, or at least monitor their passage into the West Bank. To drive trailers from inside the Green Line to the West Bank, you need permits, whereas in the West Bank, you don’t need any permission from anyone.

Moreover, the trailers produced have amazing qualities: they are capable of merging into the scenery, and then suddenly popping up, like mushrooms after rain, on these or those hills. In the settlements of Kochav Yaakov and Eli, for example, 12 trailers suddenly popped up to house new immigrants from France. Straight from the plane to the trailer. And how do they get water and electricity? The head of the local authority, who receives a salary from the Interior Ministry, approves it, the regional engineer signs, and everything is legal.

This is what the settlers call “natural growth,” and they expect, that using this argument, the State of Israel will face the Americans with clean hands. The prime minister and defense minister persuaded envoy Mitchell that there is childbirth in the territories, and indeed there is “childbirth.” Including new immigrants from France. Everyone seems to think that the Americans are idiots and that they can be sold a bill of goods forever. Then they’re insulted that Obama makes faces at Netanyahu and doesn’t believe him.

It doesn’t need to be mentioned that the prime minister and the ministers know very well about these tricks, but they prefer to close their eyes. There is no law, no judge, and nobody enforces any law in the territories. So is it any wonder that this anarchy has trickled down into the army as well? Why not, what will they do to them? Nobody should be surprised if the displays of protest in the army against the evacuation of buildings and settlements only continue and gain momentum. After all, these soldiers receive a few days in the stockade—as if they’d committed a traffic violation—and become, automatically, heroes.

Today the protest is by means of signs, tomorrow the protest will be expressed in acts, in disobeying orders, in sedition. The army is paying a price for the fact that there is no law in the territories, that everyone does as they see fit. The chief of staff will have no choice but to come to the defense of the army that is beginning to slide down the steep slope of politicization and put an end to this, even in a brutal fashion. Because there is already a smell of political mutiny in the air.

And what was the soldier’s protest about yesterday? About two illegal buildings that were demolished in the settlement of Negohot. An observer from the side might have thought for a moment that the State of Israel had decided to stop illegal construction in order to create an appropriate atmosphere to make a renewal of the negotiations with the Palestinians possible. But the building demolition in Negohot is a joke. In the last few months there has been a momentum of construction taking place in the territories, of hundreds of buildings in dozens of settlements. Ever since the American demand was raised to completely freeze construction in the settlements, and ever since Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech about two states for two peoples, there has been a race taking place on the ground: to squeeze in as much as possible. Along with the illegal construction taking place, old construction permits suddenly show up that have not been implemented for many years. Every concrete base ever poured and then frozen has come back to life and sprouted walls.

The prime minister and defense minister managed to reach a compromise with the Americans making it possible to complete the construction of about 3,000 units already in various stages of construction, all in order to buy industrial quiet with the settlers and appease them and their supporters in the government. 3,000? They’re laughing. Nobody, including in the government, has any idea how many legal and illegal construction starts there are on the ground today.

It’s not that the Palestinians are saints and constantly seeking ways to return to the negotiations. But we, with our own two hands, are providing the rope that will be used as a noose for the negotiations.

A responsible government can stop this anarchy. Even if there are no negotiations with the Palestinians, it must instruct the OC Central Command to issue a military order to freeze all construction in the territories—with or without a permit—until further notice. Every construction will be discussed separately. With no winking. When the army realizes that the political echelon is serious, that will help it instate order in its ranks.