Jerusalem – Settlers on Tuesday morning built two small fledgling West Bank outposts in response to the murder of three teenage boys, who were abducted by Hamas, and whose bodies were found under a pile of rocks outside of Hebron 18 days later.
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Some 30 to 40 settlers have pitched blue tents on a hilltop in the unbuilt E1 area of the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.
A plan to build thousands of homes there was given initial approval by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but every subsequent government since has frozen the project due to international pressure.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu initially said that he would advance E1 construction, but then halted the plans again.
On Tuesday morning, however, settlers decided not to wait for the government and they headed up to an area of E1 below the police station.
“This is our response to the terrible murder of our young teens,” said Ma’aleh Adumim resident Eli Dordek.
“The Arabs think they can scare us or make us leave,” said Dordek adding that they were mistaken.
“This is our way of expressing our connection to the land of Israel. This place has already been agreed upon by the government. There are plans that are already agreed on. We would like to settle and build here. Now is a good time to do that,” he said.
The murder of the three teens has stirred a lot of emotions, he said. “We hope to capture that energy and put it to positive use,” Dordek said.
Settlers in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank, led by Women in Green, also began setting up a new outpost on state land on a hill called Givat Oz, not far from the Gush Etzion junction.
Nadia Mattar of Women of in Green said activists had taken over an abandoned farm house.
“We are now refurbishing, cleaning and renovating it,” she said. She added that a generator is providing them with electricity.
They already have families who want to move in, Mattar said.
“This is a symbolic act,” she said. It symbolizes what the government should do, which is apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, she said.
That application of sovereignty should begin with Gush Etzion, Mattar added.
She said that the outpost itself will be called Givat Oz Ve Gaon, to include the first letters of the first names of the three teens; Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gil-Ad Shaer, 16 and Eyal Yifrah, 19.
Separately, settlers also set up a protest tent close to the Halahul junction where the bodies of the three teens were found. They are calling on the government to take responsibility for providing security for the residents of Judea and Samaria.
Gush Etzion Regional Council head Davidi Perl also called on the government to annex his region to Israel in response to the murders and barring that, to authorize building, particularly a new project, in an area called Gevaot.
He focused on Gevaot in specific, because he, like his predecessor before him, wants to turn the forested area of the Alon Shvut settlement into a new West Bank city of 5,000 homes.
Netanyahu’s government initially advanced plans for 600 news homes in Gevaot, which now houses a school, but then froze the project, Perl said.
“The answers to terrorism has to be to strengthen the settlement enterprise,” Perl said.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
So the idea is that some random people can build settlements to punish the Arabs? Shouldn’t policy towards the Palestinians be something government handles?
Where can we send donations to Women in Green and those others mentioned here? Please- some contact info.
this is the dumbest idea i heard yet, how about beating up a random arab on the street leluy neshmash, now if we set up a chevra meshnoyos, a gemach or something that the neshomos can benifit from that makes more sense
Pretty smart move. They dare the government to dismantle these new settlements right now, after the gruesome discovery and levaya, when the sympathy of the people is with them. Let’s see how this develops.