by Haggai Huberman, Israeli journalist and author, translated by Hillel Fendel.
There
has been much excitement around the rebuilding and resettling of the
communities Sa-Nur and Homesh in recent weeks – two of the four Shomron sites
that were evacuated and destroyed during the Disengagement withdrawal/expulsion
from Gush Katif in 1995. But in truth, the governmental decision to renew the
other two communities as well – Ganim and Kadim – is actually even more
meaningful in many ways.
This
is because their rebuilding is not only an erasure of the disgrace of the
expulsion and destruction, but also marks a genuine and unprecedented
revolution in the Yesha settlement enterprise.
The reason is that over Ganim and
Kadim always hovered a large question mark regarding their viability as
full-fledged communities. This was mainly because of the relative isolation
from other Jewish areas. This is in stark contrast to Homesh and Sa-Nur, which
were located on a route connecting Shavei Shomron and Kedumim to Mevo Dotan and
other Jewish towns. The nearest city to Ganim and Kadim was Afula - not a quality
municipality on which to base peripheral settlement. Compare this to the
settlements in Binyamin and Gush Etzion, whose base city is Jerusalem, and those
in western Shomron, which relied on cities such as Petah Tikva and Kfar Saba.
Overall, the assumption even before
the Disengagement, given the above as well as their weak social fabric, was
that there was little or no chance that Ganim and Kadim could survive.
Lost History?
In general, until just recently, the
relatively sparse Jewish presence in northern Shomron belied its glorious
history as the launching point for significant Jewish settlement in modern-day Yesha. For instance, the entire liberation of Judea and Samaria
in the Six Day War began precisely in the Jenin area, near the Dotan Valley
battle, and then moved southward. In
addition, the historic agreement between the Israeli government and the Gush
Emunim movement for the establishment of Elon Moreh took place in Sebastia,
near today's Shavei Shomron.
Yet, throughout recent decades, the
Shomron has proven to be a particularly “hard nut to crack” in terms of Jewish
presence and control. Barely ten settlements were established there, and they
were widely spaced from one another, and struggled to establish themselves.
In 1979, when Ariel Sharon, serving as
chairman of the Ministerial Committee for Settlement Affairs, prepared his “Annual
Plan for Settlement in Yesha and the Golan Heights” (the first, and last, time
a government body prepared a comprehensive settlement plan for the liberated
areas), he planned two small settlement blocs in northern Samaria: the Shavei
Shomron bloc, which ended up with three communities, and the Shaked bloc,
including some six settlements, as well as the city of Harish in recent years.
Ganim and Kadim were planned much
later, in the framework of another Sharon plan, this time when he was Defense Minister. (This
was all before he instigated the Disengagement, of course.) Still, while the
Menachem Begin governments did good work in building massively in Binyamin,
southern and central Shomron, and the Har Hevron area, the northern Shomron
still waited in the shadows.
Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir,
even more unabashedly nationalistic in the top job than his former mentor and
predecessor Begin, committed to establish more Yesha settlements and expand the
existing ones. However, he did only the latter, because of American
intervention and other political pressures following the Madrid Conference in late
1991 – and the northern Shomron once again remained desolate of major Jewish
presence.
The Prophetic Warning of Avraham Shvut
Years before the Disengagement, in
October 1991, Mr. Avraham Shvut, serving as head of the Planning and
Construction Department in the Shomron Regional Council, prepared a
comprehensive settlement plan for the northern Shomron. In his accompanying
letter to the plan, Shvut wrote words that were truly prophetic:
"Northern
Shomron takes up approximately a quarter of all of Judea and Samaria. Its
topography is very advantageous, and it is a connecting link both between the
Galilee and southern Israel and between the Coastal Plane and the Jordan
Valley. Yet, despite its great settlement potential, its Jewish presence,
especially in north-eastern Shomron, is most sparse. If there is any place
left where an Arab political entity could possibly arise without Jewish
presence, it is the northern Shomron, centered around Sh'chem [Nablus]."
"It is clear," concluded Shvut, "that this situation cannot
be allowed to continue, and we must rectify it immediately."
This warning was ultimately very much
realized, in that the Oslo Agreements of the early 1990's placed most of
northern Shomron - the triangle between the cities of Tulkarm, Nablus, and
Jenin - under Palestinian Authority control, except for thin transportation
corridors between the isolated settlements.
Over a decade later, when Sharon decided to include four Jewish communities from
the Shomron in his Disengagement/destruction plan, he chose the most isolated
settlements he could find, in order to enable exactly the PA continuity that
Shvut had warned about.
In fact, Shvut’s warning about enabling
the formation of the “core of a Palestinian state” in northern Shomron was
fulfilled almost entirely.
Better Late Than Never
Now, however, the government of
Israel is working to rectify this critical mistake. This month, a day after the
official ceremony marking the rebuilding of Sa-Nur, a high-level meeting took
place not far from there, in the Shavei Shomron home of Shomron head Yossi
Dagan.
In attendance were Defense Minister
Yisrael Katz, Minister Betzalel Smotrich, Housing Minister Chaim Katz, and
Amanah Settlement Organization head Ze'ev Hever. We can sum up the meeting by
saying that if everything they discussed comes to fruition, much of the
northern Shomron will come to life, with new communities, infrastructures,
roads and more.
The historic northern Shomron news we
heard this week - that 21 years after they were uprooted in the Disengagement,
Ganim and Kadim are expected to be rebuilt this coming summer - is an important
stage in the overall plan. When it happens, it will thwart the danger of the
establishment of a Palestinian state in its largest potential area: northern
Samaria. This will happen because of the creation, for the first time in
history, a substantial Jewish presence there – beginning in and around the
nearly-forsaken communities of Kadim and Ganim.