When Mofaz Lived in YESHA

Now head of Kadima, formerly Chief of IDF General Staff, and before, a resident of Elkana, a Jewish community in Western Samaria: Shaul Mofaz. The story starts:-

...in the mid-1970s, when a group of religious Zionists decided to establish a new settlement beyond the Green Line to deepen the state’s hold on territories that were conquered nearly a decade before in the Six-Day War. The head of the group, Nissan Slomiansky – who would one day become the chairman of the Yesha Council (the umbrella body of the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria) as well as an MK (including in the current Knesset) on behalf of the National Religious Party – thought it would be appropriate to include nonreligious families in the core of new settlers. Preference was given to Arabic speakers who could communicate with the people in the surrounding areas and alleviate any hardships.


On May 1, 1977, less than three weeks before the general elections that would end with political upheaval and Menachem Begin’s rise to power, the "Elkana core" won the necessary permits from the government of Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin and were permitted to break ground. This was at the time that Rabin was forced to resign after it was discovered his wife had illegally maintained a U.S. dollar account in a Washington bank.


The settlers decided not to wait one day. Even though they had no place to live – they didn’t even have basic infrastructure in place – nothing would stop them. They took to the highways, found a few prefabricated cubic buildings that were originally slated for use by various kibbutzim and army bases, muttered vague promises about returning them to their original owners, and hauled them to the site, where they planted them so that they would encircle the only built structure on the scene – an abandoned Jordanian police station.


A few days after the settlers planted their foothold, two new families joined the core. One of them was the Mofaz family.


Shaul and Orit Mofaz did not have an empty structure available to them. Neither did another couple. The police station was converted into the office building from where the council chairman, Slomiansky, worked. The other rooms in the building were to be used for a school and a synagogue. Slomiansky opted to vacate his office and allow the two families to enter. A makeshift divider was put in to separate the couples.


Slomiansky recalled how Mofaz, who at the time was a young officer at the beginning of his military career, was quick to accept the job of the settlement’s security liaison with the IDF. Orit was hired as Slomiansky’s personal secretary. “He was like a man possessed,” Slomiansky said of Mofaz. “He was always active and energetic. Orit was my right-hand woman.”


Three years later, the army stationed Mofaz in the north, and the couple was forced to leave.

^ ^