Jan. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has ordered the immediate evacuation of a new illegal settlement in the West Bank, built in honor of the spiritual leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, Haim Drukman, who died in December.
This decision opens the first schism on this issue within the new Israeli government, where the leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, has obtained unprecedented powers within the body that regulates the daily life of Israelis in occupied territory, the so-called Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Smotrich has denounced Gallant’s decision, which in his opinion has ordered the evacuation “against previous orders”, without consulting the matter and “completely against the agreements of the government coalition that serve as the basis for its existence”. In fact, the far-right leader has ordered the COGAT leadership to halt the evacuation of the settlement “until it is possible to hold a conversation on the subject” this coming Sunday, at the earliest, reports the ‘Times of Israel’.
The settlement would have been built by Drukman’s grandson in the vicinity of the Migdalim settlement and is already home to five families, according to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
The founders of this new settlement have specified that it has been erected near the Transamaria highway to alter Palestinian territorial contiguity, while Drukman’s grandson, Neve Schindler, has stressed that “it is the best way to commemorate” his grandfather.
“We call on the entire nation of Israel to come to strengthen and join our activities. The campaigns for Judea and Samaria — the Biblical name for the West Bank — do not stop for a moment. We need you to win,” Schindler said.
Drukman was one of the founders of the Gush Emumim (Believers Bloc) settlement movement, and later turned to the right and extreme right from center-right positions, where Religious Zionism now stands.
Ghasan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors the settlements in the Nablus governorate, has indicated that the settlement is in the vicinity of the village of Yurish and has pointed to the presence of several portable houses, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal under international law, although the Israeli authorities differentiate between those to which construction permits have been given and those to which they have not, as is the latter case.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to whose Likud party the Defense Minister belongs — already announced before taking office that “the Jewish people have the exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas in the Land of Israel” and that he will settlement expansion in the West Bank.
Thus, he stressed that “the Government will promote and develop settlements in all parts of the Land of Israel: Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria –biblical name for the West Bank–“. The Palestinian Authority has already warned of the impact of these decisions on the peace process and the feasibility of reaching a two-state solution.
