Homesh No Longer a Jewish Home

Reported then:-

The state intends to nullify the original 1978 military seizure order for the land of the former Homesh settlement, a move that would return the property to its former Palestinian owners.

This precedent-setting ruling legally closes the door on the ability of settlers to rebuild the Homesh settlement...

And now:

Palestinians can farm the land that was the site of the former Homesh settlement in Samaria, according to a ruling by the Attorney General’s office issued last week but released to the media only on Sunday.

The ruling is the final legal nail in the coffin for the battle waged by right-wing activists and politicians to resettle Homesh, one of four West Bank settlements evacuated as part of the 2005 disengagement plan....


On September 10, the head of the IDF Security and Criminal Desk, Major Udi Sagi, sent a letter on behalf of Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein...Sagi explained that Homesh has been removed from the list of settlements, and as such the order, which prohibited Palestinian access without IDF permission, no longer applied to that hilltop.

...MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said it was a discriminatory act that had significance with respect to the overall issue of handing over land to Palestinians that had been under Israeli ownership.

...Avi Ro’eh, who heads the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, said it was a serious and illogical step. Israel should not give up strategic property, especially in a week that marks the 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, Ro’eh said. After years of concessions and withdrawals, Israel’s security situation has only gotten worse, he added.

“I want to remind the defense minister of his words from four years ago, that we need to return to Homesh and that the disengagement was a mistake. The defense minister should correct this mistake by renewing the settlement in Homesh,” Ro’eh stated.

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Chanukah At Homesh

At Homesh, Sunday, 28th of December starting at 12:30PM

This May Be A Repeat

But it's a worthwhile repeat.



This sticker reads:

This is how Tel Aviv is Seen from Samaria

We Must Be in Homesh or

Rockets will be in Tel Aviv

The "Girls" of Homesh

For the past 35 days, a Jewish presence has been renewed at Homesh, from which Israel had "disengaged" two years ago and it is being maintained basically through the deidcated efforts of Jewish women who have been camping out with all their children and help from highschool pupils.

The proof:-










Notice the view in the last picture to the upper right to understand the strategic position of Homesh overlooking the area of Hadera.

Who Are These People?

Are they American pioneers heading out West?

No, they are religious highschool girls marching off to Homesh.

Let's cheer for the adventurous Jewesses.

Homesh Big Story

New York Times has it, it seems, on its front page with a slide show as well.

Here.

The take:

The reoccupation, even temporarily, of a destroyed Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank, near Jenin, is an open challenge to a weak Israeli government. How it plays out will be viewed by Palestinians as a sign of whether Israel intends to keep its pledges, or whether settlement activity will continue to proceed unhindered, despite Israel’s promises to halt it.

“We are not here to cry,” said Batya Danziger, 16, one of the many teenagers who took part in the effort to reach the now desolate Homesh. “We are here to live and build it back up again.”

The groups organizing the march were not connected to the mainstream settler leadership known as Yesha, which did not endorse the march.

If the settlers succeed in gaining a new foothold in Homesh, which, since disengagement, has been a closed military area, some observers say it would be in keeping with the settlers’ history of success in defying government orders to eventually get their way.

“They are taking initiative so that they can determine the agenda,” said Dror Etkes, of the Israeli group Peace Now, which monitors settler activity. “It exposes the total cowardice of the government, that they have no direction.”

“It’s in the spirit of the settler movement to do, not to just talk,” Mr. Avrhamov said. “If you stick to only being realistic, nothing will ever move.”

Seems, thought, that it's just the NYT's agenda to highlight the issue of YESHA.