Likud MK and Knesset Deputy Speaker Danny Danon said that if Defense Minister Ehud Barak is not stopped now, there are nine thousand housing units in Judea and Samaria which are being challenged like Ulpana Hill and the Jewish purchased residences in Hebron.
“We must stop this erosion and say, enough, we won’t let Barak carry out a creeping erosion of the settlements of Judea and Samaria,” Danon told JewishPress.com Sunday night, at the end of a crowded assembly outside the homes of Ulpana Hill in Bet El, under the banner “The Likud Is With the Settlement Movement” (Ha’Likud im ha’hityashvut).
MK Danon was one of a dozen or so Likud MKs and other dignitaries who arrived Sunday evening to show their support for continued and even expanded Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.
Danon promised before Passover to pass legislation to correct the Migron issue, whereby the Israeli High Court had annulled a deal signed between the government and the settlers to prevent a forcible evacuation, and instead provide them with alternative housing on a nearby hill.
“Last week the Knesset convened during its recess, to discuss these very issues,” Danon told JewishPress.com. “Migron was the beginning. It continued with Machpelah House, and now Bet El.”
“There are a few legislative options,” Danon continued. “I have endorsed the Settlement Regulation Act. It’s a good, appropriate, Zionist option. There are other ideas as well.”
The Settlement Regulation legislation determines that after some time has passed and a previously unknown Palestinian claimant comes up with documentation of ownership of an existing settlement, the alleging owner will receive monetary compensation or alternative land, if they can prove their ownership.
Some speakers at the Likud solidarity meeting outside the Ulpana Hill homes have suggested that today all a Palestinian person has to do is go to the Palestinian Authority and receive a piece of paper saying a certain plot of land belongs to him. We asked Danon how the court would go about verifying such claims, which are becoming rampant with the encouragement of leftist, pro-Palestinian Israeli organizations, many of which are directly or indirectly funded by the European Union.
“The mother of all evils is the fact that we have not enforced Israel’s authority over Judea and Samaria,” said Danon. “Today the process is that they don’t go to a court, but instead they begin with filing an appeal with the Supreme Court. And there the entire process of proving ownership is more problematic (as the high court may accept evidence which would never be acceptable to a civil court — YY). If the same claim were filed with a normal court, this would not have been the outcome.”