Make no mistake: The removal of three structures in the Migron outpost two nights ago has only the slightest connection to the issue of the rule of law. It is not the law which has recorded an initial win here, but the Peace Now movement, which has succeeded in entangling the country in the High Court of Justice to the point that sometimes it seems that even more than the petitioners -- leftists who desire Migrons destruction -- want to win the case, the country appears eager to lose this battle. No complaints can be made about the High Court. Justices Beinisch, Naor and Joubran did indeed order the evacuation, by the end of March 2012, of Migron, considered the largest illegal outpost in the Judea and Samaria regions. But what choice did they have, after the state prosecutor announced that the settlement was established without governmental permission, against the law and on private land owned by the Palestinians who filed the petition- The troubling questions about Migron relate to the positions of the state and prosecution as one. If the settlement was, in fact, established without governmental permission, how did the various arms of the government come to pave highways to access its hill, install electrical wiring, water and sewerage systems, and set up educational institutions, a synagogue and a ritual bath? Even a plan for 500 new housing units was prepared by the Construction and Housing Ministry for this largest illegal outpost in the Judea and Samaria regions. And who exactly are these Arabs who were suddenly discovered as the owners of the land? Aerial photographs over the years show that the land on which Migron sits was always and forever free and rocky. No Arab ever complained about the theft of his land there. When the people of Migron met with those registered as the land owners -- those whom the Peace Now movement has now found -- and asked to buy the land from them, the owners were surprised and behaved as though they had won a prize, because until then they did not see themselves as owners of the area at all. It was possible to deal with Migron a bit differently. In particular, MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, as defense minister under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, offered a reasonable solution: sort out the land ownership rights in the area, advance the status of the city building plan put together by the Construction and Housing Ministry, and include Migron in the jurisdiction of the nearby settlement Kohav Yaakov. Ariel Sharon once categorized Migron as a strategic outpost not to be evacuated. One does not have to be a great general, however, to understand why a presence in Migron is so vital. It is enough to climb up to Migron, 748 meters above sea level, overlooking Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, in order to understand everything.
Migron could have been handled differently
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
