History is being written in Samaria: two months ago, the Knesset repealed the Disengagement Act of 2005, effectively opening up northern Samaria for Jewish communities, and Sunday night, the Yeshiva of Homesh, one of the settlements evacuated by the Sharon government, was re-established in a permanent home on state land, a few hundred yards from its original location.
האמת שהדמעות בעיניים. כמו שאומר שמואל וונדי מנכ"ל הישיבה: 17 שנים תלמידי ישיבת חומש במסירות נפש כפשוטו ממש דפקו את הראש בקיר. למדו במערות, חוו אין ספור מעצרים ורדיפות וסיפורים הזויים. איבדנו את יהודה דימנטמן הי"ד.
אבל בסוף הקיר נשבר! אין יאוש יהודים – בכל התחומים בעזרת ה' ננצח! https://t.co/pXAUWYrgjm pic.twitter.com/qF3muN9blA— אלחנן גרונר (@elchangr) May 29, 2023
As expected, Haaretz didn’t like it and reported: “Last week, work was carried out––without a permit and against the law––to prepare the area, with the approval of Gallant and the Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich. The relevant officials in the security apparatus made it clear to the political echelon that in their opinion the works should be stopped, but the political echelon refused to stop them.”
The US and France didn’t like the move either. On May 21, State dept. Spokesman Matthew Miller issued a statement saying, “We are deeply troubled by the Israeli government’s order that allows its citizens to establish a permanent presence in the Homesh outpost in the northern West Bank, which according to Israeli law was illegally built on private Palestinian land. This order is inconsistent with both former Prime Minister Sharon’s written commitment to the Bush Administration in 2004 and the current Israeli government’s commitments to the Biden Administration. Advancing Israeli settlements in the West Bank is an obstacle to the achievement of a two-state solution.”
A statement issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “this decision is contrary to international law and also to the commitments that Israel assumed at the meetings in Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh.”
Come to Homesh, the yeshiva that upsets two countries and Haaretz.
The operation was made possible by donations from Israel and world Jewry and was carried out by the students of Homesh yeshiva and volunteers. When the work was complete, early Monday morning, the head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, arrived to place a mezuzah at the entrance to the Beit Midrash and said:
“This is a historic moment. We are just a few steps away from correcting the terrible injustice of the deportation from Homesh. Since the deportation, we have been working day and night to correct the injustice that was not only personal, to the deportees, but to the entire nation of Israel. About two months ago, the Knesset officially removed the mark of Cain of the deportation from the laws of the State of Israel. And this is yet another step on the way to full rectification. We will still go back to Ganim, Kadim, and Sa-Nur. The nation of Israel raises its head today.”
Ganim, Kadim, and Sa-Nur were three other Jewish settlements the Sharon regime uprooted in 2005. Yossi Dagan resided in Sa-Nur at the time.
Sharon decided to evacuate the four settlements (even though the territory remains under Israeli control due to the security establishment’s fear that the Arabs would be using these points to shoot rockets at the coastal plain – what do you know), as proof to the Bush administration that his planned disengagement would include not only Gaza but also be the first step for a massive evacuation of the Jews of Judea and Samaria. And when the State dept. protests that this is “inconsistent with former Prime Minister Sharon’s written commitment to the Bush Administration in 2004,” it means, this was supposed to be the beginning of uprooting all the Jews from Judea and Samaria.
Sorry, Matthew Miller, history is turning and your protests no longer matter.
