Saving the State from itself
04/01/2006
Source : Ha’aretz
The story of the village of Bil’in is not just another ordinary story about the injustices of the occupation, but the essence instead of the depravity of the occupation policy. The bulldozers in Bil’in are pressing ahead at full steam. They are uprooting olive trees and destroying agricultural land, and all for the sake of laying the ground for the construction of hundreds of housing units for the ultra-Orthodox on land appropriated from its Palestinian owners with the use of shady powers of attorney. At the same time, the state is putting on a false front of building a security fence on Bil’in land, and the public sees the bulldozers as the Israeli citizens’ protectors against terror.
Overseeing it all is the man who earned the nickname "Bulldozer;" and he is riding the wave of this lively illicit activity all the way to the Prime Minister’s Office, at the head of the Kadima party, which is speaking about a determined war against crime. In Ariel Sharon’s jargon, dating back to the periods in which he was building settlements on every hilltop, this action is known as "establishing facts on the ground." Israel’s border is not being determined through negotiations with the Palestinians, nor via a transparent and democratic debate.
Instead, it is being determined by means of bulldozers, and the interests of politicians and behind-the-scenes contractors who are covering the area of the fence’s construction with a network of low-cost housing units, some of which are illegal.
In the wake of the international attention that the village of Bil’in has attracted, and against the backdrop of the petition to the High Court of Justice filed by residents of the village against the appropriation of their land, documents attesting to the veracity of these claims have started to surface. The Civil Administration confirms that illegal construction was approved, and the entrepreneurs are claiming that the situation is irreversible after some 520 housing units have already been sold.
Private Palestinian land was turned into state land in dubious ways, and it all took place, according to the documents, with the knowledge of the head of the Modi’in Ilit Council, Yaakov Gutterman. It turns out that even after the local planning and building committee issued an order to suspend the construction work, the bulldozers are pressing on regardless. It turns out, too, that the construction is taking place, in actual fact, outside Modi’in Ilit’s jurisdiction. But in a government in which Sharon and Shaul Mofaz view things in the same vein- and, for the most part, turn a joint blind eye toward the illegal outposts, the uprooting of olive trees and other illegal construction- there is no chance for a change.
If the attorney general was to demonstrate some bravado and not send representatives of the State Prosecutor’s Office to the High Court to defend every one of the government’s whims with security arguments; and if Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was to request explanations from Sharon and Mofaz and thereby justify the positive public image she has acquired; and if the media was to refrain from leaving the struggle in Bil’in in the hands of groups of demonstrators from the left and see it instead as another aspect of preserving the rule of law - the process of determining the borderline by means of dispossessing the legal owners of the land could perhaps be stopped.
At this point in time, it appears that the High Court will again be called upon to save the country from itself and from the intentional and despicable policies of its leaders.
