Will it happen today? Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally keep his word, five years after the community of Migron in Mateh Binyamin was evacuated from its homes on September 2, 2012, with a vow of the PM to build them a new, permanent settlement? The people of Migron are expecting to receive the final approval for the construction of dozens of their housing units on Wednesday.
The Supreme Planning Council of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria is supposed to approve the construction of 86 homes for the Migron evacuees. They have been engaged in a never-ending struggle since the fall of 2012 with the prime minister, demanding that he fulfill his promise.
At the center of the Migron saga, which began with the establishment of the largest “unauthorized” settlement in the liberated territories – in 1999 and then in 2001 – were claims of fraud regarding the ownership of the land. Several Arab families living in nearby villages have claimed ownership of said land – a common consequence of attempts by Jewish buyers and Arab sellers to circumvent a racist law of the Palestinian Authority that forbids land sales to Jews on penalty of death. There was additional hanky-panky over an AP news report suggesting that the man who sold the land to these unsuspecting Jews in the late 1990s, Abd Allatif Hassan Sumarin, had been dead since 1961.
Here’s one encouraging sign that Netanyahu will keep his promise this time: on Tuesday, the Supreme Planning Council approved another promise by the prime minister, the building of 296 housing units in the Beit El local council, for Jewish dwellers who had also been expelled in 2012.