Edited by Dena Udren
Just over a month ago, Naftali Bennett was named Israel's youngest defense minister – and in perhaps his most dramatic decision since then, he issued a stark message to the municipality of Hevron that the period of "squatters' rights" it has enjoyed since the mid-1990's on Jewish-owned land – is now over!
Instead, the (Arab) mayor of Hevron was told that Israel will begin planning a new Jewish neighborhood there. Note that this mayor participated in the murder of six Jews outside Beit Hadassah in 1980; he sat in jail for only two years before being freed in a prisoner exchange.
Bennett's decision means that after years and years of legal and political bureaucratic obstacles, the area will once again become fully Jewish. The new neighborhood to be built will form Jewish territorial contiguity between the Machpelah Cave (the Cave of the Patriarchs) to the existing Avraham Avinu neighborhood. In addition to the public-use buildings to be built there, the 70 planned apartments will significantly boost the City of the Patriarchs' Jewish population, which currently numbers 750 plus another 250 yeshiva students.
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| Hevron |
Nearly a year ago, Hevron supporters throughout the world were treated to another piece of good news: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided not to extend the "peace-keeping" mandate of the TIPH International Force in the city. The Jewish residents had long complained that TIPH (the Temporary International Presence in Hevron) chiefly monitored the Jews, and sided with the city's Arab majority in nearly every dispute. It took 25 years, but at last the decision was made – putting an end to TIPH anti-Jewish violence including the slapping of a boy, vandalizing a car, and even interfering with IDF activity in the city – as well as giving unauthorized (and anti-Israel) briefings to international visitors.
The Jewish market was not always a market, of course. The Jordanians built it upon the Jewish-owned land when they took control of the city following the War of Independence, in 1949. It had been purchased in the early 1800's, and a thriving Jewish community was based there – until the pogroms of 1929, when the Jews' Arab neighbors, with whom they had friendly relations for years, brutally slaughtered them in their homes. No fewer than 69 Jews were murdered, and 44 were seriously wounded. Within a matter of days, the British rulers ordered the Jews to leave, marking the end of the Jewish Community in Hevron for several decades.
Two of the Jews representing the Jewish purchasers were tortured and killed in the pogrom, but the third – Rav Franko – made sure afterwards that the land remained under Jewish registration, even though there were no longer any Jews in Hevron. Interestingly, between 1949 and 1967, when Jordan controlled the area, it did not confiscate the area, but rather gave it the status of "Zionist enemy property." When Israel recaptured Hevron in the Six Day War, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum, including David Ben-Gurion, called for a renewal of the Jewish presence there.
The area of the market was never officially re-transferred to Jewish homes, largely because of a legal imbroglio having to do with the Jordanians who squatted there. A solution was finally found last year, and Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit actually approved the transfer of the land to Jewish hands. However, he added a small gesture to the Arab population: They may continue to use the ground floor.
Though that development sounds absurd, HJC (Hevron Jewish Community) spokesmen are not concerned. "The Arabs haven't been there for years, nor can they prove that they are the ones who once had rights there, and they will have no one to sell their vegetables to even if they try to open . So we are confident and thankful!" One spokesman said that planning and construction could take 3-4 years before the new housing is ready for use.
An official HJC statement thanked Minister Bennett for his decision, as well as Netanyahu and Ministers Shaked and Lieberman, and added, "The removal of the lands of the murdered Jews from the hands of the murderous mayor of Hevron is an act of historic justice that the People of Israel have been awaiting for 90 years. The City of our Forefathers will continue to be built and develop as the City of the Sons."