Haaretz discovered that Israel Vows to Advance ‘Strategic Plan’ to Develop South Hebron Hills. Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank is discussing a massive investment in the construction, including industrial complexes, a medical center and housing units. A huge investment of money and blood for a fantasy.
How many of you have ever been to the South Hebron hills? Would you move there with your children? Probably not. In fact, only 8,000 Jews settled in this dangerous area. Two of the four areas in which the security fence has been compromised are in the south Hebron hills. And settlements there are a major target for terrorist attacks. Dafna Meir was murdered in Atniel and Hillel Ariel was murdered in Kiryat Arba. When the Knesset’s Foreign and Security Committee members visited the area, residents told them that their children have difficulties sleeping at night. They cannot even get into bed without checking that all doors and windows are locked. Imagine that. A local doctor told the Knesset committee that adults there take far more anti-anxiety medication than in the rest of Israel. The terrorists who carried out the recent attack in Sarona in Tel Aviv came from there. So did the terrorist who murdered Hillel Ariel.
There are other areas in Israel with significant security concerns: residents of the Gaza envelope and northern communities, for example. But this government doesn’t care about them because they don’t live in the occupied territories. And the government’s only reason for this massive investment in settlement is to make a future peace agreement and the evacuation of settlements more complicated and expensive.
Even those who don’t believe Israel has a Palestinian negotiation partner must see the folly of investing millions in areas that will be evacuated in a future agreement. And everyone must see the madness behind the attempt to sabotage any chance for a future in which citizens will not have to be afraid to take a bus, go shopping or stand at a bus stop. What does the government think will happen? That if they pour enough money in Atniel it will magically turn into Tuscany? That hundreds of thousands of Israelis will move with their children and a flak jackets to live in a hostile Palestinian area? How much blood and money will be wasted to support this delusion? For How long?
Zehava Galon published the original text in Hebrew here.
Translation: Maya Haber
Dear Zehava: I deeply thank you for the work you and your colleagues in the Knesset are doing. However, you don’t have the power to stop the increasingly crazy things that Israel’s government is doing. I contacted you with an initiative to gain that power and am still waiting for your reply. I hope to hear from you directly and meaningfully.