The Binyamin Regional Council announced Friday that it has begun to rebuild the northern Judean village of Amona.
Two caravans were placed on the West Bank Amona mountain near Ofra late Thursday night. Families have already begun to return home.
Israeli forces destroyed the community in 2017 in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling that the village was built on private land belonging to a Palestinian.
But the 40 Jewish families forcibly expelled from Amona were successful in raising sufficient funds to legally purchase 40 dunams on the mountain from the owner.
“Yesterday I promised that we would establish a new Jewish community in Binyamin in response to the serious attacks,” declared Binyamin Regional Council head Yisrael Ganz in reference to the recent wave of Palestinian violence in norther Judea.
“Today we did it.”
Ganz further emphasized that the caravans were placed on part of the land bought legally from the Palestinian owner.
The return to Amona is important not only for the Jews expelled from the mountain but also for all those resisting the international community’s two-state agenda. Demonstrating that communities destroyed by the authorities can eventually be rebuilt would go a long way in defanging the politically-motivated house demolition policy.
The best way to deter Jewish building on private Palestinian land and to begin fostering an atmosphere of equality in the West Bank would be to create legal channels for both Jews and Palestinians to build homes and communities on Israeli state lands.
The building of new Jewish communities and the granting of equal land access to Palestinians would send a clear message to Palestinians and the international community that Israel is serious about keeping the West Bank and taking responsibility for not only the territory but also its people.
Israel’s ministerial committee for legislation is set to debate a private member bill Sunday that would retroactively authorize West Bank Jewish villages built on state land without government permission, officially transforming them into either legal communities or legal neighborhoods of existing communities.
While such a bill might seem to some as a positive first step, it will only be taken seriously or have the impact its sponsors desire if it can not only serve Jewish national interests but also successfully addresses the needs and grievances of local Palestinian communities.
