Amona. We will not move away from here
Photo: Tomerico
Amona is here to stay
Op-ed: The government is not really planning to evacuate thousands of families from their homes. The only step to be taken now is make our homes legal.
Ten years ago, we arrived at Amona.
A small, green community at the top of the hill, where 200 happy children live with their parents. We built our home in Amona and had our children there. When we arrived at the community, no one said there was anything illegal about it. We were told that Amona would be a large neighborhood, and the Housing Ministry launched construction work for dozens of houses.
One bright day, the sky fell down on us. High Court petitions, courts, private lands. We were truly shocked. We had come to engage in quiet and loving Zionism. We had come to make the land bloom. We wanted to do something good, and suddenly we’re robbers.
March in support of Amona residents (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
There is no other place in the world where people are uprooted from the home they have been living in for years. There is no other place in the modern world where people are turned into refugees and transferred.
Today, everyone already knows that Amona’s residents are not alone. There are thousands of other families in Judea and Samaria that live in homes that were revealed as problematic only after being built. Even the prime minister has told us that there are “many other Amonas.”
Bibi (Bnejamin Netanyahu), Ayelet (Shaked), look us in the eye and tell the truth: You’re not really planning to evacuate thousands of families from their homes, are you?! So regularize our home. Make it legal.
We, in Amona, are saying one thing today: We will not move away from here.
Revital Halbershtat lives in the Amona outpost.
