Three appeals submitted by Peace Now are presently pending.  They relate to the fact that the authorities are refraining from acting to halt initiators of illegal construction being carried out in a number of locations throughout the West Bank.  The extent of this phenomenon, which were exposed less than a year ago by Talia Sasson, Advocate, and even then only in part, have translated into a frightening story of a government mechanism that not only completely renounces its legislative duty to enforce the law against the settlers, but which has also embraced criminal patterns that have spread far and wide.

A glance at the Sasson Report lays bare the manner in which past governments (both Likud and Labor) encouraged illegal construction in the settlements and the outposts:  inspectors from the Civil Administration continued to do what they were charged to do, that is, write up reports, and once in a while, they even dared to confiscate a hoe or a bucket used in carrying out “illegal work”.  In that way, thousands of demolition injunctions were issued against thousands of illegal structures in the settlements, but all of the parties involved were fully aware that these injunctions would never be put into practice.  Hence, over a period of dozens of years, two realities have existed side by side: one exists in the offices of the Civil Administration (and only there!), where files are stuffed with thousands of demolition injunctions, and they still keep growing, while in the second reality, which exists outside of the offices of the Civil Administration, those same illegal structures keep turning into neighborhoods and cities, while the State of Israel continues to invest the best of its resources in them.

The unacceptable gap between the two realities described above could only exist due to this unique situation that exists in the West Bank, where the political echelon must approve the demolition of “Jewish homes”, that is: in order to actually be able to enforce the law against the settlers themselves.  This is contrast to the directive re demolition of “Palestinian homes” in the West Bank, which does not require the approval of politicians, as well as to the situation within the borders of Israel itself, where politicians are proscribed from dealing with issues of law enforcement.

However, as always, if there is a negative side, there must be a positive one:  the story of the nine buildings designated for demolition in the illegal outpost of Amona draws the lines of the unwritten agreement which has existed for dozens of years on the West Bank between the settlers and the State.  This is the letter of the agreement:  the settlers, for their part, are to take over the lands of their Palestinian neighbors by making their lives as miserable as possible.  At the same time, in return, the State will provide the settlers with the following services: roads, water, electricity, security and most important: immunity from the law.  The salaries of a number of functionaries in each settlement are paid from the State treasury: the secretary, the rabbi, the absorption coordinator and the security coordinator), a habit which also became established and binding with the passage of years.  Thus, gradually, the settlers fulfilled the aims which the State had officially been prevented from declaring as its objective.  After all, we must recall that we are talking about a democratic country!

In its petition, Peace Now has consciously refrained from demanding the removal of the dozens of the inhabited caravans standing but a few meters from the nine buildings designated for demolition in Amona.  This is despite the fact that each and every one of those caravans were placed on private Palestinian land and that demolition orders have been issued against them for some several years.  These caravans will apparently, continue to stand there until a future petition which will submit the issue of the failure to fully evacuate the Amona outpost before the Supreme Court.  This is especially important since with regard to those caravans, not to mention the 100 outposts spread throughout the West Bank, the old agreement between the government and the settlers is still valid.

The conclusion of this sad story is that whatever guides the actions of the legal authorities is not what is really happening throughout the West Bank, as well as the fact that the laws of the State and fundamental ethics continue to be crudely trampled underfoot.  What guides them is what the world and the Israeli public as a whole are aware of what is happening, or think what is happening throughout the West Bank.  For if that was not the case, would it ever have occurred to anyone that the authorities would wait for Peace Now’s petition in order to act?

Therefore, the only conclusion that can be reached is that the anticipated demolition of the nine structures is, in fact, a unilateral nullification of the fundamental section in the agreement between the settlers and the State.  Since the money invested in Amona by settlers who already had purchased a home might be lost, it is hereby recommended that those same settlers lodge a suit for damages against the State, since after all, it is obvious that even criminals have basic rights.  The settlers’ petition should open with the words by David Rotem, the veteran advocate of the Judea and Samaria Council, recently quoted in “Besheva”, the settlers’ newspapers: “The bastards changed the rules and forgot to tell us.  Once they would steal the horse with us, today they sent the sheriff after us.”