by Shalom Ber (Bereleh) Krumbi, journalist and political activist, translated by Hillel Fendel.
I was a youth of 15 years of age during one of the forcible dismantlings of the Gilad Farm, near Karnei Shomron. This was an experience I will never forget, though not for any positive reasons. There were thousands of policemen and soldiers, with bulldozers, burning tires, and dozens of IDF jeeps and police vans. They all arrived for one reason: to destroy a few wretched shacks on a Samarian hilltop.
This particular evacuation was followed by several more from the Tor Hilltop, and then from the Yitzhar Lookout and other hilltops (five in number). Every time it was the same ritual. It was largely forbidden to build in the Shomron, and every shack that was put up faced the sword of uprooting and destruction. Photos of burning tires and burning structures in Yesha filled the front pages of the nationalist newspapers every week.
The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha), still under the traumatic effects of the expulsion of 9,000 Jews from Gush Katif and the northern Shomron in 2005, then kicked off a campaign against the destruction of the outposts, which had been built to serve as a defense line for the nearby settlement communities. But meanwhile the army and police simply pursued every new Jewish shack they could find and bulldozed them down. I remember one Friday afternoon when the Tapuah Junction, east of Ariel, was closed for two hours by large army and police forces, because a truck was suspected of transporting a caravan home to a Jewish community in the Shomron. In the end, the caravan was found to be headed to a nearby army base…
In any event, the hilltop pioneers didn't give up. Mitzpeh Yitzhar was rebuilt time and again until it finally took root. The same with the Gilad Farm, only more so; it was demolished and rebuilt lots of times, and now, not long ago, it was recognized as a full-fledged official community.
In general, every hill that was destroyed was rebuilt, and every house demolished was later reconstructed. The struggle continued constantly – even when [former PM Ariel] Sharon commissioned a special “Outposts Report” by Attorney Talia Sasson, seeking to turn every construction in Judea and Samaria into a criminal matter, and even under the painful freeze during the Obama period. Through it all, the pioneers of the hills kept on building with unlimited self-sacrifice, continuing to settle and cultivate this land.
And then came the farms. No longer were there just individual couples or families living alone on a barren hill, but real farms, with flocks of sheep controlling acres and acres of land. Thus was born the new modern Zionist project that reawakened the values on which Zionism was founded: the Land of Israel for the Jewish Nation. The new farmers lived the Zionist credo "another dunam [quarter-acre] and another sheep" to the hilt. These Jewish shepherds are the Trumpledors and JNF pioneers of the Tik-tok generation. The second Zionist revolution is underway!
But
nothing could prepare us in Judea and Samaria for what has begun taking shape
during the course of this Netanyahu government, and particularly over the past
year.
MK Betzalel Smotrich, who wears two ministerial hats - Treasury
Minister and Minister in the Defense Ministry - is basically, together with his
colleague in the Religious Zionism party that he heads, Minister Orit Strook,
leading the current charge to certify and recognize increasingly more new
Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Not that he is the first to do this:
Arik Sharon, as Housing Minister 25 years ago, also led the charge for more Yesha
housing [before he championed the Disengagement/withdrawal from Gush Katif and
northern Shomron in 2005]. He liked to do this in a very
"audio-visual" manner, arranging for media coverage of himself
standing on a wind-blown hilltop surrounded by contractors and builders,
banging on a specially-brought table, "Everyone get a move on here!"
No wonder Sharon was known as a bulldozer.
Smotrich does things differently. He and his colleagues are barely
seen going out to the field, and they don't make sure to be photographed giving
dramatic orders. He rather remains in his Finance Ministry office well past
midnight almost every night, while Strook, too, works behind the scenes.
Together, they are permanently changing the map of Judea and Samaria.
The numbers are barely believable. Over 160 Jewish farms, mostly quite young, now control the open areas in Judea and Samaria, rendering them unquestionably "Jewish." In addition, thousands of new housing units are being approved in Yesha, along with new neighborhoods, roads, and infrastructures.
Just a few years ago, our nationalist camp could not dare to
speak about building new communities in Yesha. The establishment of Evyatar between
Ariel and the Jordan River was seen as a miraculous, one-time event. And now
suddenly, dozens of new communities are being established in all over the
expanse. These include the rejuvenation and renewal of Homesh and Sa-Nur, two
of the four northern Samaria communities Israel destroyed in the Disengagement.
If until Oct. 7th of 2023, many decision makers
in Israel were held captive by the infamous "conceptziya" – the
conception that Hamas won't attack, that our borders were secure, and that the
situation was under control – the Government of Israel has now become the leader
in waking up from old misconceptions. This is true not only in terms
of the rejuvenation of Judea and Samaria, but also in Israel's new take-the-offensive
security doctrine. In terms of Yesha, it appears to be now understood that in
order to stop the next massacre, we must return to the fundamental principles
of early Zionism: another dunam and another goat, and the old, basic rule that
wherever the plow passes, the Israeli border will pass there.
RELATED
DEVELOPMENTS (ed. note):
April 10 – The
Cabinet decided secretly two weeks ago to establish 34 new communities
in Yesha. The decision was kept secret by American request. Among the future towns
are:
Alonei
Shomron, No'a, and Emek Dotan – slated to be established in the northern
Shomron. No'a will be in close proximity to Kadim and Ganim, of Disengagement
fame, so as to relieve their relative isolation. Tzofnat will be located near
Tapuach, and Ta'anakh is to arise in the Jenin region. Yishuv HaDaat already
exists unrecognized near Shilo, and Mevo'ot Yehoshua will be located along
Route 443 between Jerusalem and Modiin – not far from Maoz Tzur, which already
has 11 families.
April 12 - The Interior Ministry has
granted official local-government status to eight new Jewish towns and
communities in Judea and Samaria. Among them are Ganim and Kadim, which were
destroyed over 20 years ago in Israel's unilateral disengagement under Prime Minister
Sharon. All four Shomron towns destroyed then have now been officially
reinstated. Twenty-five other Yesha
communities have similarly been recognized over the past four months. Among the 25 are Kanfei Shachar in Binyamin, Alon (which
until now was a neighborhood of Kfar Adumim), Lechi (Chavot Yair), Brosh
HaBik'ah in the Jordan Valley, and Mitzpeh Zif near Hevron.