After speaking out on several occasions about the importance and recognition of renewed Jewish settlement in Gaza, and even participating in a right-wing conference on the subject last year, Construction and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf (UTJ) was photographed on Thursday at the entrance to the Netzarim axis with settlement enterprise activist Daniela Weiss and officials in her Nahala movement, which is working to establish renewed Jewish settlements within the Gaza Strip. The minister was presented with a map of settlement nuclei in Gaza.
“I toured the settlements of the Gaza region today,” Goldknopf tweeted. “Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible massacre and the answer to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which instead of caring for the 101 kidnapped people chose to issue warrants against the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense.”
סיירתי היום בישובי חבל עזה. ההתיישבות היהודית כאן היא התשובה לטבח הנורא והתשובה לביה״ד הבינלאומי בהאג שבמקום לדאוג ל-101 החטופים בחר להוציא צווים נגד ראש הממשלה ושר הבטחון. pic.twitter.com/01GGVwcS1d
— השר יצחק גולדקנופף (@DOVRUTGoldknopf) November 28, 2024
Reestablishing Jewish settlements in Gaza, a good and needed move, would guarantee the IDF presence in the Strip for as long as there are Jewish settlements there. But besides being a great supporter of resettling Gaza, Goldknopf is also among the government’s biggest opponents of the Haredi draft.
Goldknopf was invited last month by Major General David Zini to tour IDF bases and learn about the efforts being made by the army to adapt military service to meet the needs of young Haredi recruits – but the minister declined.
Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman tweeted a terse response: “Goldknopf, instead of standing with settlement groups in Gaza, stand at the recruitment office and encourage yeshiva students to enlist in the IDF.”
Ouch.
Two weeks ago, the new Defense Minister Israel Katz announced his decision to send 7,000 draft notices to young Haredi men (originally ordered by his predecessor Yoav Gallant), but emphasized his commitment to promoting a comprehensive dialogue with all relevant parties, with the aim of reaching an agreed-upon solution. The long-awaited solution is supposed to balance the need for significant integration of the Haredi public in military service while preserving the Torah world, which constitutes a central pillar of Jewish and Israeli identity.
Minister Goldknopf told Minister Katz in a meeting: “Just tell me so we know – are we going to go with you through what we went through with Gallant? Why are you issuing us more notices? Do you want to cause chaos, close the yeshivas? Entire homes here are afraid because they received notices, not knowing whether the army will come to them at night.”
In response, Katz promised: “We are preparing a draft law that will be by consensus so that it should be clear to you that the law will also retroactively eliminate the draft notices that have been sent.”
So, like, why did he send them?
Goldknopf’s visit to Gaza coincided with the emerging effort of dozens of right-wing MKs to repeal the disengagement law in the Gaza Strip. A major activist on this front is Samaria Regional Council Head Yossi Dagan, who, together with Daniela Weiss and Nahala succeeded in repealing the same law in northern Samaria, where the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to include four Jewish communities with the expelled Jews of Gaza, back in 2005. Sharon was signaling his intent to proceed with clearing much of Judea and Samaria; the King of the Universe signaled His intent to turn Sharon into a decorative vegetable.
Daniela Weiss told Makor Rishon the minister toured with her for about four hours. “The goal of the tour is to add government support to the idea of return in Gaza,” Weiss said. They began in Sderot, continued to the entrance to the Netzarim corridor, and also visited the old military camp where the movement set up Sukkahs during the last Sukkot holiday. “We would be happy to place the temporary caravan camp there, in preparation for settlement,” Weiss noted.
“These are birth pains,” Weiss explained. “The pains of Messiah.” As to Goldknopf’s readiness to extend real support to her project, she said, “We don’t know exactly what the effect of the tour will be, we don’t know exactly what it will be like, but he’s another force. I’ll remind you that Minister Goldknopf also participated in an event at the national convention center in Jerusalem to promote settlement, and we’ve been in touch ever since. He also visited the Evyatar settlement that we established in Samaria and submitted for government approval the establishment of the Arbel settlement in the north. The romance of the Nahalah movement with Minister Goldknopf is a serial. It’s a powerful novel.”
