Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: illegal structure

Showing posts with label illegal structure. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Israel to increase funds for monitoring illegal Arab Area C construction

The Israeli ministry that oversees settlements intends to double the budget allocated to settlers for drones and inspectors to monitor Palestinian construction. The National Missions Ministry intends to allocate a total of 40 million shekels ($11.1 million) for this purpose.

In 2020 the National Missions Ministry – then the Settlement Ministry, and headed by Likud lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi – announced for the first time that it would allocate 20 million shekels ($5.5 million) to these departments, to be disbursed among the settlements. The funds were eventually transferred much later, under the Bennett-Lapid government.

Under the leadership of National Missions Minister Orit Strock, that budget is projected to double. A recently published call for tenders stresses that the budget will only be allocated after the state budget is approved.

Good!

There are lots of Western NGOs who put everything Israel does in Area C under a microscope - while they ignore, or encourage, Arabs to build in the same area.

The EU even puts its own name and logos on these illegal settlements, built nowhere near any infrastructure, positioned specifically to stop Jews from building - or to stop the IDF from being able to use existing military zones.

In 2016, I created this animation of satellite images showing a bunch of illegal structures being built. I've gone on tours and seen these structures up close - often with EU logos.

Masafer Yatta, which is a favorite topic among the anti-Israel woke, is likewise a new community built in Area C - not an ancient Palestinian village being threatened.

It is hard to describe how prevalent this illegal building is without seeing it yourself. So this modest increase of funding to help document the many, many illegal Palestinian structures is a welcome development.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

UN accuses Israel a brand new crime - "domicide" - because Israel must be the worst violator of EVERY crime!

The UN's antisemitic Special Rapporteur for Attacking Israel, Francesca Albanese, tweeted this:

The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements & systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians amounts to “domicide”. This is nothing but Israel’s attempt to curtail Palestinians’ self-determination & threaten their very existence.

She links to a report from the viciously anti-Israel Human Rights Council which says:

The international community must take action to stop systematic and deliberate housing demolition and sealing, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, UN experts* said today.

In the month of January 2023 alone, Israeli authorities reportedly demolished 132 Palestinian structures across 38 communities in the occupied West Bank, including 34 residential and 15 donor-funded structures. This figure represents a 135 percent increase, compared to the same period in 2022, and includes five punitive demolitions.

“The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to “domicide”.

Here's the interesting part. The word "domicide" was coined last year by Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing.

In his report he defined the term this way:

“The attacking, bombing and shelling of civilian targets, the razing of entire cities and villages – displacing millions into homelessness – have continued unabated despite the development of modern human rights and humanitarian law,” the UN expert said.
While international law outlaws all forms of arbitrary housing destruction, deportation, displacement and forced eviction, the Special Rapporteur noted an alarming continuity of gross violations of the right to adequate housing in times of conflict.
In a path-breaking report, Rajagopal urged States to recognise “domicide” - the systematic or widespread violation of the right to adequate housing – as an international crime of its own standing.

Rajagopal created the term to describe a much bigger issue than just destroying houses here and there. He's discussing the systematic destruction of entire cities and making thousands of people homeless just to hurt people:

“How many more Aleppos, Saanas and Mariupols must we endure? We must not allow those responsible for such egregious crimes to remain in positions of power. They must face international justice,” Rajagopal said.

This scene in Aleppo is what he means by domicide:

In the 17 or so years I've been reading Palestinian media, I have not once seen an article about a homeless Palestinian in the West Bank.

Those who are building illegal houses in Area C already have houses in Palestinian administered areas. They aren't homeless! They are building these illegal, dangerous shacks in order to grab land from Israel - with European support. It is a purely political move. But they have a place to sleep at night even after Israel demolishes their homes. No one is living in a tent or in a car that I have seen.

This is not at all what Balakrishnan Rajagopal had in mind when he created the term.

Once the UN describes a new crime, the modern antisemites must hijack the term to apply it to Israel, of course, and pretend that Israel's demolishing illegally built houses - which is an obligation under the laws of occupation! - is the worst possible example of this crime.

And, let's face it, saying that Israel is guilty of "domicide" sounds so much more dramatic than "enforcing zoning laws."

By hijacking the issue, the UN's "experts" and Albanese have now cheapened the actual crimes of Syria, Yemen and Russia. Because antisemites insist that Jews are the worst people on Earth.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The EU redefines chutzpah: demands compensation from Israel for demolishing illegal buildings

The classic definition of chutzpah is someone murdering his parents and then throwing himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

The EU has just hit that high standard:

The European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, said this weekend that Israel must pay reparations for structures it demolishes in the West Bank that were built with EU funding.

Lenarcic's remarks were in response to 24 European Parliament members who contacted the commission following Israel's intention to demolish dozens of houses in the West Bank villages of the Masafer Yatta area that were built with financial aid from the European Union or its member states.

"The European Union has repeatedly requested that Israel compensate for the loss of European taxpayers' money," members of parliament wrote to Lenarcic, adding that the commission itself confessed that its diplomatic requests to Israel were ineffective.

Lenarcic responded that "in a number of incidents, Israel has been asked to return or compensate for assets financed by the Union that that were destroyed, dismantled, or confiscated," and that the European Union is continuing to work in this regard through a range of diplomatic and political channels.

This is like demanding compensation from the police for confiscating the car you stole.

The EU-funded buildings are built illegally. Not only under Israeli law - but under international law!

Even if you call Area C "occupied," the occupier is mandated by the Geneva Conventions to maintain a system of laws in the territory. These buildings are built in violation of planning and zoning laws, haphazardly, almost always on public/state lands, with no roads and often stealing water. It is like deciding to build a house in the middle of Yellowstone National Park.

I've seen these structures first-hand, proudly displaying the EU flag.

The EU deliberately builds them in Area C, in areas that no Arabs or Bedoun have ever lived, in order to steal land from use by Israel. They move Arabs from Areas A and B, and bus students from those areas to schools they build in Area C. It is land theft.

And these illegal buildings are popping all over.

I once made an animation showing one brand new village in the Judean desert, funded by the EU and NGOs, and how it has been growing based on satellite images.

There is no infrastructure. With full EU support, the Arabs grab land, build shacks, and then claim that these are their ancient homesteads.

As The Daily Mail reported in 2015:

Alan Baker, an international lawyer who took part in drafting the Oslo Accords in the Nineties, said that the EU’s actions were illegal.

‘The EU is a signatory to the Oslo Accords, so they cannot pick and choose when they recognise it,’ he said.

‘According to international law, all building in Area C must have permission from Israel, whether it is temporary or permanent.

‘The same principle applies anywhere in the world. If you want to build, you need planning permission.

‘The EU is ignoring international law and taking concrete steps to influence the facts on the ground.’

If there is any problem here, it is that Israel has not been pro-active enough in destroying the illegal buildings, empowering the Palestinians and the EU to keep building against international law.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Another Area C Arab "school" built just for people to denounce Israel when it demolishes it

Israeli courts have upheld a ruling to demolish an illegally built structure in Area C that purports to be a school.

The metal prefabricated building, in Ein Samiya Al-Badawi, was built last January. And the ramshackle, dangerous building appears to have been built deliberately to be demolished, so Israel looks bad.

I'm not convinced that the building was ever used as a school. The only photos of video I can find of the interior show some desks and even schoolbooks scattered on some of them, but no walls, no whiteboard, no lights and seemingly no electricity.

The bathrooms are portable toilets outside the building.

What decent government wouldn't condemn such a building meant for children?

But it appears that there was never any intent to build a real school. It was all a sham meant to provide good fodder for the anti-Israel crowd when Israel brings in the bulldozers to demolish it, probably early next year.

One way we know this is from the stories that say who sponsored the school to begin with.

It was erected in coordination with the Palestinian Ministry of Education, a European NGO, and...."the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission."

That doesn't sound like an education organization. And it isn't.

It was established by the Palestinian Authority to pressure international organizations to condemn Israel for its settlement activities.

All of this is playacting, and everyone knows it - Israel, the Palestinians and the European funders for these structures, and the media which reports on these stories straight as if there is nothing amiss in the constant building of structures in Area C for communities that never existed a few years ago.

Here is Ein Samiya in 2021 and in 2014, according to Google Earth.

It is a shame that no media bothers actually reporting the truth.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A small part of the tsunami of lies: The Ain Samia School

The Palestinian Supreme Fatwa Council warns against Israeli interference in Palestinian schools:

The Supreme Fatwa Council warned against targeting Palestinian education in Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestinian territories by canceling the Palestinian curriculum, closing and demolishing schools, and attempts to impose the Israeli curriculum on Palestinian students studying in Jerusalem schools, in order to market the Zionist narrative, related to the religious and historical rights of Jews.

The council explained, in a statement today, Thursday, that the occupation authorities had developed an Israeli education curriculum for Arab citizens in the city of Jerusalem after its occupation in 1967, in an attempt to confront the Palestinian narrative and impose the Israeli narrative in its place..., claiming that these schools practice incitement in their curricula, while the real goal lies in trying to impose the Israeli curriculum.

Of course, Israel should impose the same standards on Arab Jerusalem schools as in Arab schools elsewhere in Israel. And Israel has been encouraging that in various ways for years. And many Arab schools have embraced and supported that!

The Council also condemned the decision of the occupation court, to demolish and destroy the Ain Samia Basic School, stressing that these attacks against education and schools constitute a heinous crime added to the series of continuous crimes of the occupation against the educational sector, noting that these crimes constitute a flagrant violation of the right of students to safe and free education. They call on international legal, human rights and media institutions and organizations to assume its legal and moral responsibilities towards the escalating violations of the occupation, and work to curb these aggressive practices, expose them and provoke them in all forums and fields, and provide protection and advocacy for our students.

We see rhetoric like this all the time, escalating and threatening in the most extreme terms whenever anything doesn't go their way.

Let's look at the Ain Samia school:

It is an illegal structure. And it is unsafe.

According to this article that is sympathetic to the desire to build these ad-hoc schools as land grabs in the West Bank:

Although construction was not completed, the educational process began with the attendance of ten students, with about 50 others joining their colleagues within days.

The tin-built school looks like a skeleton, and lacks the main facilities such as yards, laboratories, water and electricity networks, and even the blackboard, while activists and parents are trying to complete the construction.

No one would tolerate such a school that doesn't even have a bathroom. But the Palestinians tell the world that Israel is violating Palestinian human rights by stopping classes in such a dangerous structure.

This is a small example of how they lie, constantly, consistently, and in a way to appeal to ignorant Westerners who don't bother to Google the information to learn the truth.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Jews Building Homes: If the Thought Makes You Nuts, Congrats! You’re an Antisemite (Judean Rose)

What is it about Jews building homes that gets under peoples’ skin? We know what they claim. They say that building homes for Jews in disputed territory is an “obstacle to peace.” That, however, is an obvious lie. The real reason the world does not want Jews to build homes in Israel is Jew-hatred: antisemitism.

How do we know that the “obstacle to peace” mantra is a lie providing cover for hate? We know this because of history and precedent. The 600 homes of the Jews of Yamit proved no obstacle to peace with Egypt. The 2,530 homes in Gush Katif and the 270 residences in Samaria did not stand in the way of the great Gaza giveaway. And the 450,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria did not stop Oslo and local Arab autonomy.

Despite the thousands of homes built to shelter Jews in their holy, indigenous territory, Egypt still received the gift of Sinai, while the UNRWA “refugees” were given de facto states in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Construction, even of Jewish homes in ancient Jewish land, did not prevent any of this from happening. Where Jewish homes once stood, today there are no Jews. These areas have been ethnically cleansed of any Jewish presence, with the exception of a handful of captives held by Gaza in the years since 2005, two of them almost certainly dead.

Jewish homes don’t get in the way of peace negotiations or Israeli concessions because Israel doesn’t let them. Instead, the Jewish State simply expels thousands of its own people, Jews themselves, and flattens their homes with bulldozers.

It really is that straightforward. Thousands of Jewish homes go up and come down. Sinai gets Egypt. The rest get autonomy and Gaza.

None of this truth is reflected in the July 1^st letter sent by 29 Democratic Congressmen to Anthony Blinken, on the eve of Biden's trip to Israel. The letter writers do not care that Israel anyway destroys the homes before handing over the land. They demand that the President pressure Israel to STOP BUILDING HOMES FOR JEWS!

We write to express our alarm over the Israeli government’s renewed effort to build settlements in the West Bank area known as E-1.

The writers, in their own words, write to express their “alarm” over Israel’s “renewed effort to build settlements” in parts of the Jewish homeland they don’t want us to have.

Note the EU symbol on this illegal Arab structure in "disputed" Israeli territory. The EU finances these illegal homes for Arabs while, like the 29 Democratic congressmen, it condemns legal Jewish construction. If that's not an overt expression of antisemitism, what is? (photo courtesy of Regavim)

As legislators committed to the goal of a just and secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians, we are grateful to this administration for its previous work to prevent harmful actions that move us further from this goal, including the successful prevention of E-1 settlement plans that were under consideration last year.

The 29 legislators call the building of Jewish homes, “harmful actions” and laud the President for preventing such construction in the past. They say these things, they claim, because they are committed to a “just and secure peace." This is a demonstrable lie. If they were committed to a just and secure peace, they would speak out not about Jewish homes, but Arab terror. Especially considering that according to a 2015 article by Batya Medad, 15 percent of the home-building Jews are American citizens, with all the right to the protections that citizenship affords.

Note the EU stickers on the solar collectors and homes of this illegal Arab shanty town. The world is happy to finance ARABS building (illegal) homes. (Photo courtesy of Regavim)

(Photo courtesy of Regavim)

Everywhere you find illegal Arab building on Jewish land, you will find evidence of world support. (Photo courtesy of Regavim)

We ask that you continue holding firm on this issue, especially as you prepare for President Biden’s forthcoming visit to the region.

The letter is by way of reminding Blinken that his job, as a court Jew, is to continue to hold firm against Jews building any more homes on their land.

As 26 Members of Congress wrote in a letter from November 2021, efforts to advance settlement construction in E-1 “pose an irreconcilable challenge to a lasting peace solution between Israel and the Palestinians… [and] have been referred to as ‘doomsday settlements’ because they would threaten the territorial contiguity necessary for a viable independent Palestinian state by dividing the north of the West Bank from the south, as well as the West Bank from East Jerusalem.”

The writers, from the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, point us to the fact that their numbers are growing. In November there were 26. Now there are 29 of them, all demanding that Jews stop building houses. This letter, write the congressmen, echoes the November letter which states that Jewish homes “pose an irreconcilable challenge to a lasting peace solution.”

The homes themselves, are referred to as “doomsday settlements” without a hint of irony or any recognition that it is antisemitic to characterize a Jewish town in this manner. The 29 are quite frank in stating that there will be no peace if a Jew builds a home anywhere in Judea, Samaria, or Jerusalem. Which means that should Jews build homes, as far as these members of congress are concerned, they can be murdered by Arab terrorists with impunity and it will be the Jews' own damned fault.

Preserving this territorial contiguity is vital to the prospects for peace and a two-state solution, and we remain strongly opposed to any such effort to entrench the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The antisemitic letter signed by the 29 Democrats uses all the familiar catchwords to cover their hate. Peace, blah blah blah, Two-state solution, blah blah blah, Occupation, blah blah blah. But the end game remains the same, the goal is no Jewish presence. And no building homes in the meantime. They don’t want the Jews to be comfortable.

How do we know the shibboleths of peace, two-state solution, and occupation are meaningless doublespeak? We know it because neither Jew nor Arab wants two states for two peoples. There are a million polls to attest to this fact. And here's another, quite salient fact: Jewish homes are always destroyed by Israel when the Jewish State cedes Jewish territory to Muslims.

We were heartened that the Biden administration shared Congress’s concerns and upheld the strong stance held by previous administrations of both parties in opposing settlement construction in E-1. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides has called the proposed settlements a “disaster” and has described the Biden administration’s efforts to prevent it as going “full bore.”

The congressmen were “heartened” to hear that Biden also wants Jews to stop building homes. They want to remind Blinken that even Nides, also a Jew, fell into line, calling Jews building homes a “disaster.” They are saying they want Biden to come down on the Jews “full bore” to make them stop. building. homes.

This administration has demonstrated the progress that serious diplomatic engagement on these sensitive issues can lead to, and we are looking forward to the President’s first visit to Israel this month. Despite this administration’s clear commitment to preventing settlement construction in E-1, the Israeli government has recently reversed its position and announced plans to move ahead with E-1 settlements once again, scheduling the final hearing on the objections to the project within days of the President’s planned visit. United States intervention at this pivotal moment is critical. In recent months, there has been an increase in violent clashes, and we are hopeful that the President’s visit will help ease tensions and reassure both parties of the United States’ commitment to a negotiated peace.

They are so looking forward, say the letter-writing Dems, to the President giving Israel a good diplomatic thrashing over Jews building homes. The Jews know that Biden doesn’t like Jews to build homes, yet the Israeli government has announced brazen plans to even build MORE Jewish homes. The Democrats speak of the causal effect of Jews building homes to “an increase in violent clashes” AKA Arab terror.

We are encouraged by reports that the Biden administration has pushed the Israeli government not to move forward with the planned hearing on E-1 settlement construction, and we hope you will continue to prioritize this issue with the current interim Israeli government and any future coalitions.

The 29 Democrats say they are encouraged by the fact that Biden is pushing Israel to stop all these conniving Israeli plans of building more homes for Jews. They hope, as well, that Jews building homes will be treated as a major issue on Biden’s agenda for his Israel visit.

We urge you to continue emphasizing in the lead-up to this visit that settlement construction in E-1 remains a red line for the United States, and to use every diplomatic tool at your disposal to ensure that Israel does not further advance these devastating plans.

In conclusion, the signees “urge” the President to keep “emphasizing” that when Jews build homes, it crosses a “red line," and suggest he should use “every diplomatic tool at your disposal” to ensure this building of Jewish homes, comes to a stop. Their message to Biden is that the very thought of Jews taking shelter in their historic homeland--actually LIVING there--is in their opinion, a “devastating” thing.

Sincerely

They mean all this. Sincerely.

We know it to be true: antisemites and antisemitic congressmen come and go. They each in turn, get the chance to lend authority to the antisemitic hate they spew. They will say, for example, that no Jew has the right to build a home on his land, and that no wonder the Arabs get violent at the very thought of it. The truth does not matter to them. If the truth mattered a damn to them, they'd realize that violence derives not from building homes, but from hatred for those who seek shelter therein.

A Jew building a home is a harmless thing. Bricks and mortar, red tiles and heavy machinery, they matter not. There is no natural relationship between construction and violence. Violence comes from hate. The building of homes for Jews no more invites Arab terror than the rape victim's choice of clothing provokes sexual violence.

The 29 congressmen should be ashamed of blaming Jewish victims for being attacked and murdered by vicious Arab terrorists. But the 29 are not ashamed. They are proud to reveal their naked antisemitic hatred, before the entire world.

Here are their names:

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Real apartheid: Jews who build illegally in the Negev get expelled in 24 hours, Bedouin build with impunity (with 2013 EoZNews video)

From Times of Israel:

In the Negev, a few dozen right-wing activists, reportedly residents of the south and students at yeshivas in the area, set up a new outpost overnight Tuesday on state land close to the Bedouin city of Rahat.

Two prefab structures were brought to the location, which the activists declared as a “new community” named Ma’ale Paula in memory of the wife of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion had advocated for Jewish communities to be established in the Negev during the early years of the state.

Activists said that Ma’ale Paula was set up because of “the conduct of the government and the abandonment of the Negev to a Bedouin takeover,” a reference to illegal Arab construction in the region.

Two people were arrested, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

A complaint against the outpost was filed by the Israel Land Authority, the Israel Police said in a statement.

The outpost was demolished.

But:

The right-wing, pro-settlement Regavim group said in a statement that some 3,500 illegal buildings are constructed each year by the Bedouin community.

“Worse than the lack of law enforcement is the selective enforcement,” the group said, according to Kan.

In 2013, I went on a tour of the Negev with Regavim. The group is not a bunch of anti-Arab, right-wing fanatics as they are often portrayed in the media. They want to find a humane and legal solution to the problem of the Bedouin in the Negev, and they admit that the Israeli government has not treated the Arabs fairly over the decades. But still, the Bedouin build thousands of illegal structures and villages in the Negev every year, and besides my own video, I have not seen any English language news reports that describe the issue accurately at all.

This is not the most professional video I've ever done, but it is still the best description of the complexities of the intersecting problems of Bedouin ignoring the laws of the state that they are citizens in, Israel trying to find solutions - including giving them land for free, the criminal acts of destroying infrastructure meant for Arabs, and even polygamy. The sheer amount of illegal building in the Negev is mind-boggling and the news media rarely reports it.

Today, the problems is much worse than it was when this was made nine years ago.

You will not regret spending.the 12 minutes to watch this video.

“Unilateral West Bank land grab”

Alan Solow, a member of the Executive Committee of Israel Policy Forum and former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, wrote a blog in Times of Israel arguing that Israel should not extend sovereignty on parts of Judea and Samaria for this reason:

No solution should be imposed on anyone or by anyone in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

While American Jewish consensus around Israel policy has not always been easy to attain, this sentiment has stood for decades as the one universally accepted principle undergirding the quest for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – that it must be reached through bilateral negotiations between the parties. This precept allowed Jewish leadership to strongly urge American administrations of both parties not to attempt to implement their own vision of how to resolve longstanding differences between the two sides. Despite expressions of expected or preferred outcomes over the years, every President has endorsed this concept. This principle also allowed American Jewish leadership to credibly oppose unilateral attempts by the Palestinian Authority to declare a state or to otherwise take action without consent to change the status of disputed territories.

There is a fatal flaw in this logic: Palestinians have been acting unilaterally for decades.

They have called themselves the State of Palestine. They have joined numerous international conventions without any desire to actually enforce their words.

They have built illegally in Area C, with support from the European Union, creating facts on the ground and literally engaging in a “land grab.”

And, perhaps most importantly, they have taken the de facto veto power that the international community has given them, using exactly this logic, to make peace far more distant than it appeared to be in 2000. They’ve said “no” to every offer, not to negotiate but to wait for others to pressure Israel to give up more concessions without compromising their own intransigent, extremist positions.

Solow makes it sound like this status quo can go on forever:

The fact is that nobody is credibly threatening Israel’s control over major settlement blocs in the West Bank which are generally recognized as likely becoming Israeli territory as part of a final status agreement. Israel’s continued control of these Jewish population centers is, as a practical matter, uncontested. The only reason to acquiesce to Israel taking them unilaterally now is to abandon the position that solutions are to be negotiated, not imposed.

It can go on for a few years, but the situation is not frozen in amber. Palestinians will continue to build; they will continue to attempt to gain political legitimacy at Israel’s expense, they will continue to grow in population, they will continue to occasionally explode in violence.

Israel cannot play forever by these rules where Palestinians can do what they want and Israel has its hands tied by adhering to an artificial moral standard. Continuing to wait for Palestinians to come to the table means that Palestinians can continue to act with impunity.

Extending sovereignty is not a land grab. It is the beginning of a disengagement. It is finally choosing borders. It is solving the demographic problem. It is staking a legal claim. It is sending a message that Palestinian intransigence will not be rewarded anymore. It is recognition that the world has changed since Oslo and Israel cannot be tied to an agreement that the Palestinians have abrogated since at least 2001.

Solow shouldn’t be warning Israel against doing what it must. He should be explaining to American Jewry why Israel must do it. And it is a serious failure in American Jewish leadership that he, and other leaders, cannot even figure this out for themselves.