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Lawless settlers are an inseparable part of Israel
By Gideon Levy
Tags: Settlement freeze 

The dogs of Shiloh run about, excited. Barking loudly, they try to chase after the long convoy of security vehicles passing the doghouses. But they aren't going anywhere: They're collared to long iron chains.

No sight could better illustrate the futile journey of the inspectors and police officers through the West Bank this week.

They're here to deliver the building freeze orders, to people who rip them up in front of the cameras. This week, they traveled from one settlement to the next, and we followed, an odd convoy of armored vehicles from the Civil Administration, the Yasam special police forces and the Border Police, two cars full of journalists and one car driven by a settler activist reporting to his friends from the field and giving advance notice.
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Some settlements the convoy passed quickly, without stopping, which raised even more speculation about the objective of this shadowy trip. At other settlements, its way was blocked. When the convoy parked at one West Bank junction, a few Palestinian passersby from a nearby village stared. They had no idea where it was headed; it seemed like the members of the secured convoy weren't so sure either.

Monday was a windy, rainy day in the West Bank. Gush Dan remained indifferent to what was going on just a short trip to the east in Hevel Binyamin - the pictures of the settlers forcibly blocking the law enforcers, and the council heads tearing up the orders, didn't rouse them from their deep, multi-year coma.

On June 11, 1963, Alabama governor George Wallace stood outside Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama and physically prevented two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from entering. Wallace, who coined the phrase "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," was trying to block implementation of the law banning racial segregation in his state. Only the presence of the deputy U.S. attorney general and National Guard troops kept the governor from taking the law into his own hands. Wallace was compelled to step aside and let the black students into the class. The rest is history - the American history of upholding the law.

Around here, no attorney general or state prosecutor has thought to personally stand up to the rebellious council leaders, as in Alabama, and our national guard troops are still apologizing to the settlers. Anyone upset by their behavior ought to direct his anger at the state, not at them. The state that permitted, funded, secured, invested in, paved and built, turned a blind eye and kept silent in the face of all the violations of the law that accompanied this enterprise from day one. The state cannot come and say now: We didn't know that this is how they are. We didn't know they would spit in our face like this. We didn't know that this is what grew there, in the land of lawlessness, which is an inseparable part of the State of Israel.

Production of a farce

The scene is grotesque. A long convoy of jeeps and vans slowly and noisily makes its way along the West Bank roads, going hither and thither, often to no avail. In the middle are two white Civil Administration jeeps. One contains the short inspector in his wool hat. He stops every once in a while to smoke a cigarette. He holds the papers for which this whole convoy was gathered: the stop-construction orders. "How am I driving?" asks the sticker on the jeep.

You have to accompany Haaretz's settlements reporter Haim Levinson to understand just how such a farce is produced, how this ridiculous spectacle is staged. A tight network of settler activists and PR people maintain a constant manipulative racket of beepers and cynical text messages, reporting, misleading, warning and threatening our reinforced vehicle. There's not a moment of quiet.

And this is what one of the settler public relations fellows has to say early in the morning: "The guys from Yitzhar could lose it today. Yesterday the detention of one of the residents was extended. Listen what's going to happen there: They issued demolition orders for Havat Gilad, and it's going to be lively there. Havat Gilad is private Jewish land. It's not stolen land. Everything was done with building permits.

"There are millions without building permits. Ehud Barak is no sucker: He needs to go to the Labor Party and say: I am a leftist. As soon as they hassle him, he'll start with the illegal outposts. You want to embarrass me over the stop-construction orders? I'll embarrass Ya'alon and Begin with the outposts. These aren't illegal outposts. It may be illegal construction.

"And so Begin and Ya'alon will be embarrassed and he'll win the left's sympathy again. It's not about the law here, it's all a game. He takes Havat Gilad, which is a symbol, and says: I, Barak, am not afraid of anyone. I am demolishing Havat Gilad. The settlers will go wild, Barak will sit in the Kirya and play the piano and be the hero of the left."

By the end of the day, Havat Gilad was still completely intact. Orders, shmorders.

The West Bank is once again flooded with slogans: "No surrender to Bibi's freeze inspectors," read red letters on every abandoned cement block and at the entry to every settlement. We're eating a three-shekel falafel at Hawara when the beeper goes off: The inspectors are on the way to far-off Beit Aryeh. We cruise down the empty "Trans-Binyamin" road. "Have you spotted any unusual movement of forces?" asks another sign along the way, followed by a phone number. And of course: "Despite everything, we'll keep building." Of course. It goes without saying.

Several IDF and police jeeps wait by the entrance to Beit Aryeh, this innocent "communal yishuv," as proclaimed by the sign, with streets bearing the names of flowers and plants, as in Modi'in, as in any other "communal yishuv" these days. Levinson says that the residents are offended if you call them "settlers." The place looks deserted. Everyone is off at work in Gush Dan.

The "state's balcony," as per Ariel Sharon, is desolate. On a clear day you can see all the way to the airport, the sign even promises a view of "72 percent of Israel's population," no less, from Hadera to Gedera. The meaning is clear and menacing. This is where Sharon would bring his guests to show them the regional superpower's "narrow waist" and the existential dangers, definitely existential, that awaited it if Beit Aryeh, the rock of its existence, were ever to be evacuated, God forbid. As if to demonstrate, an El Al plane passes by on its way to land. Even on a cloudy day, it could be brought down from here. Meanwhile, Nardi Marketing is offering a house for sale on one flowery-named street and the inspectors remain at the entrance, or perhaps they've already passed through here.

The Beit Aryeh Development Company is working on another "expansion" of the settlement, the new "Vineyard Neighborhood," freeze or not. The construction equipment is already in the field, and so are some Palestinian laborers. A beeper alert from the Hebron settlers committee: "Convoy next to Beit Aryeh."

The rain doesn't let up, visibility is poor and we continue trailing the convoy toward an unknown destination. The leading Border Police jeeps stop by the Elisha pre-military academy, perhaps to fool the enemy, and then continue on. This part of the country is strewn with settlements, outposts, overlooks, expansions, academies, yeshivot and ulpanot. White caravans and red tile roofs on every hilltop. We briefly lose sight of the convoy and Levinson calls the lookouts at Talmonim. We find it again near Ateret. Turn left onto the road leading into Shiloh, "the place where the story of the Tabernacle took place," as the sign tells us, where now you can get "grilled meats at the butcher's in the industrial zone," another sign informs us.

Surprise, surprise, the settlement's iron gate opens without hindrance, police cars wait outside just in case, and the inspectors' cars enter unimpeded.

We cross through Shiloh. The convoy doesn't stop for a moment, not even when the wretched guard dogs bark wildly at it. Where are the animal rights organizations when you need them? These dogs are the only ones who offer any resistance to the inspectors. On the side of the road we see the foundations for four new houses, looking like no freeze is going to stop them.

In nearby Shvut Rachel, there is no resistance either and the convoy does not stop. It's not clear why we went in and out, just passing through as if to check off another name on a list. Here, by the way, is where Jack Teitel lived happily.

A new vehicle now joins the convoy: a Hyundai Getz, belonging to Yishai Kariv of the Binyamin residents' committee. No group is as organized as these settlers. Before long he'll be leading the convoy, informing whomever he wants, warning whomever he wants, delaying its entry to its next destination. This too is all part of the big show. The convoy makes it way up the hill to Ma'ale Levona. Levinson knows: Here it's going to be interesting, because of the girls' high school there. This settlement is surrounded by an electronic fence. It's a quality of life issue. The iron gate opens, and that's when the day's big show starts.

Within minutes, the entrance plaza fills with dozens of ulpana girls. They come down from the hilltops in their winter coats and long skirts, raring to go. A minute later, the boys appear, some with masked faces, pushing a huge dumpster and barbed wire to block the convoy. The happening is beginning: The girls climb onto the Civil Administration jeeps, sit down and start covering the doors with graffiti denouncing the "expulsion." Meanwhile, their friends climb into the dumpster. They're all giggling, and an older gray-haired woman is presiding over the action. Ma'ale Levona is fighting, the ulpana is fighting, and the evil forces of the law shall not be allowed in.

So what do they do? Capitulate. For now at least. The jeeps turn around amid flying clumps of mud. The mud revolution. Everyone is stuck in it now, not knowing what to do.

The beeper carries another announcement from the settlers: "Large Yasam forces have turned around. Starting to get wild." The girls silently escort the jeeps on their way out. While other girls their age are hanging out at the mall, at least they're fighting for something.

Three hours later, all the forces return, with reinforcements. A few rocks and a stun grenade are thrown, bold Border Police officers leap on the iron gate (now closed), other forces invade the community from another route and the target is finally conquered. Evening falls. Ma'ale Levona is in our hands.
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