Hanan Porat understood that if he could fill Judea and Samaria with dozens of settlements and hundreds of thousands of settlers, no government would be able to evacuate the territories and arrive at a peace agreement.
By Nehemia Shtrasler
There were so many accolades and so much praise that I found myself getting confused. Was this the same Hanan Porat that I also knew? True, he was an idealist, and charismatic, and modest, and he always said what he felt in his heart. True, also, that he was the great leader of Gush Emunim. But we must not forget, and this is the tragic part of the story, that his biggest success - covering the West Bank with a carpet of Israeli settlements - was also the greatest disaster that befell the people of Israel.
My father used to say that Hanan Porat was a very dangerous man. He looked so nice, so handsome, and he always smiled a smile of pure olive oil, so that you would become confused and charmed by him and wouldn't notice that he was leading you, pied piper-style to a disaster.
His admirers pointed out this week what a gigantic contribution he had made to the settlement enterprise on the West Bank. But Porat did not make do with Judea and Samaria. He was a maximalist. He wanted everything. When Menachem Begin signed the peace treaty with Egypt, he attacked him with fury and joined MK Geula Cohen, who bolted the Likud to form the rightwing Tehiya Party. Because even in return for peace with Egypt he believed it was forbidden to return even one grain of sand in Sinai. Imagine our situation in the 32 years that have since passed without (even a cold ) peace with Cairo. How many soldiers would have been killed, how many wars would have broken out, how many tens of billions of shekels would have been wasted?
That was also Porat's approach with regard to evacuating Gush Katif. From his point of view, even the Gaza Strip, with its 1.5 million Arabs, was ours and we should not give up even one clod of its earth, despite the fact that it was not part of the Land of Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-settler-leader-who-led-israelis-to-disaster-1.388656Civil Administration plans to expel tens of thousands of Bedouins from Area C
10 Oct. '11
The Civil Administration (CA) is planning to expel the Bedouin communities living in Area C in the West Bank, transferring some 27,000 persons from their homes. In the first phase, planned as early as January 2012, some 20 communities, comprising 2,300 persons, will be forcibly transferred to a site near the Abu Dis refuse dump, east of Jerusalem. These communities currently live in the area of the Ma'ale Adummim settlement and nearby settlements; half of them live in 1E, the area designated by Israel for future expansion of Ma’ale Adummim. In the second phase, the CA plans to expel communities from the Jordan Valley. One option being considered is building a new permanent town for these communities next to a-Nabi Musa, west of Jericho. According to the CA's schedule, the plan will be implemented in three to six years.
The CA announced its plan to "relocate" the Bedouin communities to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The main reason given was the claim that the Bedouins do not have rights to the land on which they currently live and that all their construction has been done without permits. The CA did not consult with representatives of the communities before adopting the plan, and ignored the anticipated harm to these communities’ way of life. Most of the communities informed the UN agencies that they would object to the plan.
About 80 percent of the Bedouins living in what Israel terms the "Adummim bloc", who are expected to be expelled in coming months, are 1948 refugees who once lived in the Negev, in southern Israel. Two-thirds are under age 18. All of them have lived for decades in unrecognized villages. Demolition orders have already been issued against most of the structures in the communities – tin structures and tents and a school in the Khan al-Ahmar community. In two communities – Wadi Abu Hindi (350 residents) and al-Muntar (300 residents) – demolition orders have been issued against all the structures in the community.
None of the communities are hooked up to the electricity grid and only half are connected to the water system. They do not receive vital services in the areas of health, education and others. They live a traditional life based on sheep and goat farming, but their access to grazing land and to markets is limited. According to OCHA’s figures, most of the residents in these communities suffer from food insecurity.
http://www.btselem.org/settlements/20111010_forced_eviction_of_bedouins
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