See also here from three days ago – RB
The Migron File
Peace Now, Jan 26 2012
The agreement proposed to the Migron settlers this week by the Israeli Prime Minister has set a new precedent in the settlement enterprise. For the past 20 years the government has kept to its national and international commitments not to build any new settlements in the West Bank. Outposts that were set up in the West Bank were deemed illegal even under Israeli law, the state has consistently claimed they are to be evacuated and that the settlers in these outposts had no authorization or assistance from the state. In recent years we have witnessed expansion in settlements and the retroactive authorization of some outposts. Never in the past 20 years have we seen the Israeli government purposely plan and construct a brand new settlement deep inside the West Bank. It is clear that the Netanyahu govt has succumbed to the political pressure of Likud stalwarts and settler threats of violence, and has now offered the Migron residents an authorized government sponsored settlement 2 km from the original site, in return for cooperation in evacuating Migron. The evacuation of Migron ordered by the Israeli High Court to be implemented by Mar 2012, would likely only take place when such a new settlement is fully constructed, in many years’ time. Not only is Netanyahu rewarding settlers for clearly breaking Israeli law, establishing illegal outposts on Palestinian private land – but the reward he is to pay the settlers will be at the expense of a viable Palestinian state. Peace Now will not allow this to happen, and will oppose at with every possible means the postponement of the evacuation of Migron and the establishment of a new settlement for its residents. In addition we will continue to demand that the government complies with the decision of the High Court without further delay. Read more about the legal case here; download full Migron File (pdf) here.
Peace Now’posts a ‘Migron file’ on the internet
Tovah Lazaroff, JPost, Jan 26 2012
A new settlement is what you get when you “invade someone else’s land” and “refuse to evacuate,” stated Peace Now in a poster it published this week on the Internet against the Migron outpost. Settlers hit the Web this week as well with a YouTube video in support of legalizing Migron, which is slated for demolition in March. Peace Now struck back in virtual reality with the poster, a YouTube video and a file of information on the outpost. On Sunday, Netanyahu offered to authorize homes for Migron settlers on state land in an empty portion of the same hilltop on which their community is now situated. Peace Now has charged that such authorization would mark the first time in more than a decade that Israel has created a new settlement. Migron settlers have to date rejected the compromise and continued with their campaign to legalize the outpost in its present location. The High Court of Justice has ordered Migron’s demolition because it was built without the proper authorization and on land that the state has classified as belonging to private Palestinians. Migron residents have argued that the land’s status has never properly been adjudicated. They contend that it can be reclassified as state land under the laws of abandoned property and that some of the lots were purchased from Palestinians.
On Wednesday, Peace Now published a document on the Web called “The Migron File,” in which it took issue with the settlers’ claims. Before 1967, the outpost land was registered with the Jordanians under the name of Palestinian owners, according to Peace Now. The group’s Hagit Ofran said it was still listed in their name under the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria. As part of “The Migron File,” Peace Now posted a photograph of the Palestinian land ownership papers for Migron lots on the Internet, with a stamp from the Civil Administration. It also included quotes from high-level IDF officials. According to Peace Now, Brig-Gen Kamil Abu Rukon, who formerly headed the Civil Administration said:
The land on which the buildings of the outpost were built is registered Palestinian land within the boundaries of the villages of Burka and Deir Dibwan.
It also quoted Eitan Broshi, the Defense Ministry’s settlement adviser in 2009, as saying:
The land in the outpost is registered land owned by Palestinian residents.
In “The Migron File,” Peace Now explained that the outpost was first constructed in 2001, when settlers received a permit to place a cellular antenna on the hilltop. It showed an aerial photograph from 2000, in which the hilltop appears to be empty. By 2003, according to another aerial photo, many of the outpost structures were already there. In 2006, Peace Now petitioned the High Court of Justice to demolish the outpost. At the time, according to the group, the state said:
Because the outpost is built on private land, there is no legal possibility to accept its existence. No one, as senior as they might be, had the authority to order the construction of the outpost.
Demolition of the outpost was staved off in 2008, when the Yesha Council made an agreement with the government to relocate the home to the nearby settlement of Geva Binyamin. The state never built the new homes, and Migron residents never accepted the offer. In Aug 2011, after Peace Now turned once again to the court, it ruled that the outpost must be demolished by March of this year. But attorney Amir Fisher, who represents the Migron settlers, said that the Palestinians now claiming ownership of the land were not the same Palestinians in whose name the land had been registered. “There is no argument that the land was registered to Palestinians,” he said, explaining that the question at hand was who now had the right to the land, the residents of Migron, or the Palestinians who claimed to have inherited it from the initial owners? He also took issue with Peace Now’s attack on the settlers as people who decided on their own to build Migron, or even worse, as people who “stole” the land. According to Fisher, Peace Now has ignored the fact that it was the state, with the help of the Construction and Housing Ministry, and not the settlers, who built Migron. He pointed to the 2005 report by attorney Talia Sasson on the outposts, which stated that the ministry had spent 4.325 million shekels on Migron. The outpost, which is located in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem, is now home to 50 families.
‘Ruling to raze Migron unjust, inhumane’
Yair Altman, Ynet, Jan 26 2012
Some 130 rabbis signed a letter addressed to Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish, urging her to reverse her ruling that the West Bank outpost of Migron should be razed, Ynet has learned Thursday. The rabbis said in the letter that the decision to destroy homes is “inhumane and unjust,” and warned that it undermines the public’s trust in the justice system. The rabbis wrote:
Any justice system understands that when a person builds on land that isn’t his without malice, especially when the ownership of the land is disputed, the home shouldn’t be destroyed.
The rabbis urged Beinish to annul the ruling, and instead require the residents of Migron to pay compensation to the owners of the land. Several prominent rabbis from across the religious spectrum have signed the letter, including Safed’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Tzohar Chairman Rabbi David Stav, Ohr Etzion Yeshiva head Rabbi Haim Druckman and Ramat Gan’s Chief Rabbi Yaakov Ariel. A source close to the initiative told Ynet:
We have rabbis here from all the religious movements and from across the country. There is a sense of distrust towards the court. It’s a dangerous situation and we don’t know where it will lead.
Some 200 rabbis sent the government a similar letter last month.
