PM: No settlers would ever be evacuated if it were up to me
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits former residents of unauthorised Netiv Ha’avot outpost, and says the evacuation was a “blip” and that he ‘won’t have any of that again.’
The June 2018 removal of Netiv Ha’avot was Israel's biggest evacuation of settlers since Amona — another large outpost near Jerusalem, whose residents were removed in February 2017. Of the former Netiv Ha'avot residents, 15 families still live in trailers near the original neighborhood, taking care not cross the boundary determined by the Supreme Court. The trailers were built by the state as part of a compensation agreement.
The Supreme Court ordered the evacuation of the outpost, despite its location within the Elazar settlement in Gush Etzion, due to the fact that it had been built on land that did not belong to the state.
The prime minister called the evacuation of the outpost a “blip,” which had happened since Israel “is law abiding and thus subordinate to the Supreme Court.”
“The home that this child grew up in was destroyed, but we won’t have any of that again and so we’re building this new neighborhood,” Netanyahu told the former Netiv Ha'avot residents. “There’s this thought that achieving peace with the Arabs depends on us being uprooted from our country, but as long as it’s up to me — there will be no uprooting (of settlers).
The prime minister Netanyahu said he got the strength to endure attacks on him and his family because of the devotion of settlers and the return of the Jewish people to their biblical land. “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were here. We’ve been here for 3,000 years,” he said.
The settlers who met with Netanyahu told the prime minister that they felt let down by the ruling and even urged him to let them rebuild the outpost.
“I thought a lot about what I wanted to say to you,” Orit Noy, a former Netiv Ha’avot resident, told Netanyahu when he visited her family trailer. “You’ve been my prime minister for a long time, and my disappointment in you is as great as my hopes once were.”
She added: “I hope that with your help as defense minister, we’ll celebrate our daughter’s bat mitzvah in a year and a half in our new home.”
“We want to go back to our homes,” said Rachel Bublil, another former resident of the outpost. “This will only happen with your help.”
