Settlers in Hebron (archives)
Photo: Kiryat Arba-Hebron Regional Council
Nachi Eyal
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Settlers’ rights trampled
Op-ed: Why are ‘human rights groups’ silent in the face of revocation of settlers’ rights?
The settlement building moratorium is an unprecedented act: Freezing the construction work of private individuals, law-abiding citizens who received building permits by law, paid the taxes and fees, and embarked on construction.
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Anyone who ever built a home is familiar with the anxiety involved in it, all the errands and runaround, the attempts to coordinate the completion of the new home and the departure from the old apartment, and of course, the effort to move before the beginning of the school year. After all, who wants to uproot a child from his home in the middle of the year and move him to a new class in a new city?
Yet all of the above is of no interest to the prime minister and apparently to some of his government members. Netanyahu was quoted as saying that “we’ll compensate the people whose homes were frozen.” This is similar to a rapist who tells his friends: “let’s rape this girl, but don’t worry – we’ll compensate her later.”
No government is permitted to undermine the human rights of its citizens. This is a blow that goes beyond the one-time event and it is improper and disproportional. As opposed to the first freeze, here the government wishes to stop the construction of those who already embarked on it and are in the middle of the process. Can someone understand why, for heaven’s sake?
And who still believes those who promise us that this is the last freeze? Only 10 months ago, in the State’s response to the High Court of Justice over the petition submitted by the Legal Forum against the freeze, we were told that “this is a temporary, one-time move.”
Why is America doing this?
The residents of Judea and Samaria, ruled the Supreme Court, are entitled to protection by Israel’s Basic Laws. Indeed, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom does not allow for such grave harm to the property and dignity of a person with no reason and for no point. After all, homes have already been built around the construction site that has been frozen, with its owner now waiting for the US Administration’s approval to go on with the building. Why?
Can someone truly understand why a state that makes pretenses of being a great democracy and a free country that safeguards human rights is putting a freeze on the lives of the citizens of another country, while harming and abusing them?
Imagine that the Israeli government, headed by Avigdor Lieberman, would decide to freeze all construction in the country’s Arab towns and villages, until the phenomenon of illegal construction was thoroughly examined. We would surely be hearing cries of “fascism taking over, we won’t let racism win, put an end to the ethnic oppression” day and night. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel and all the other “human right groups” would ask the enlightened world to annul the decree.
Yet now all we hear is silence. Former judges are saying nothing on the radio, the deans of law faculties nationwide are not sending urgent letters to the attorney general, and authors Amos Oz, David Grossman, and A.B. Yehoshua are not bemoaning “our country changing its face.” Please be quiet now and don’t disrupt us while the settlers are being trampled.
Nachi Eyal is the director of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, which assists victims of the Judea and Samaria construction freeze
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