Why Naftali Bennett Left the Yesha Council

According to Dani Dayan, at his Facebook account, the reason Naftali Bennet left (or was forced to leave) his position at the Yesha Council was his words just after the Migron evacuation, and repeated a few days afterwards.

In his pro-Likud ad, Dani had said

"No Naftali, Tzipi is really not to be preferred over Bibi"

What was the context?

First, in the Hebrew:

בנוסף מזכיר דיין את נפתלי בנט תוך שהוא שולח עקיצה לעברו, "...לא נפתלי, ציפי ממש לא עדיפה על ביבי..." – בדבריו מכוון דיין לדבריו של בנט בתקופה של פינוי מגרון והקפאת הבניה ביו"ש אז אמר בנט כי לבני עדיפה על בנימין נתניהו לראשות ממשלה.

And in translation,

"at the time of the Migron dismantlement, and during the construction freeze, Bennett had said that Livni is better than Benjamin Netanyahu for the premiership"

Dani was responding to Elyahsiv Reicher's comment that his reference to Naftali was "inconsequential".  The Likud spox mentioned an interview with Shalom Yerushalmi as the source.*

Dani didn't think it was that minor, even after the nightime expulsion of three families and the destruction of their homes, and wrote that because of that, Bennett had to leave his position.

If you read Hebrew, go there as the comments and Dani's input are piling up.

_____________

*

UPDATE

For the original comment, Maariv Sept. 10, 2011:

"הממשלה של נתניהו היא הגרועה ביותר שהייתה עד היום להתיישבות," ממשיך בנט במתקפת הזעם שלו. "הכל שם תחפושת. פעם ראשונה הקפיאו, פעם שנייה הרסו, פעם שלישית נותנים לערבים לבנות בכל מקום. עכשיו הם חכמים על שלוש המשפחות הללו. הכל נובע מהראש. נתניהו חלש, רופס, הוא ת"פ )תחת פיקוד. ש"י( של שר הביטחון. מי אומר שהוא ראש הממשלה של הימין? אהוד אולמרט מעולם לא הקפיא את כל הבנייה ביהודה ושומרון. גם ציפי לבני לא הייתה מקפיאה." 

^

Are Arabs "Price Taggers"? Or The Real Terrorists?

There was a bit of the usual internal Israel bickering whether the "price tag" phenomenon is "terror".

But, as usual, the answer is provided by Arabs, this via Haaretz:

Shots fired at Israeli vehicle in suspected West Bank terror attack attempt


Around noon on Saturday Shabbat, shots were fired at an Israeli vehicle near the Ma'ale Shomron settlement in the West Bank Samaria.  No one was injured in the incident but the vehicle was damaged and there were clear signs that the vehicle had been struck by bullets...

The Arab version:

Israeli forces storm Azzun, say response to gunfire


Israeli forces on Saturday morning closed all the entrances to the northern West Bank village of Azzun east of Qalqiliya preventing all residents from going in or out.  Locals told Ma’an a large number of troops stormed the village in the morning.  The soldiers completely shut down the northern and the western entrances before they ascended to the roof of a local resident’s home and started ransacking houses for inspection.

Onlookers said the soldiers claimed to have come under fire.

That was Ma'an.  Here's Wafa.  And the Arutz 7 adds:

...Police and security forces, including Ephraim Brigade deputy commander Tzur Harpaz, responded to the scene of the attack. Soldiers entering the village reportedly shut down the northern and the western entrances before they ascended to the roof of a local resident’s home and started going house for house in search of the terrorist...It is currently unknown whether IDF forces found the terrorist during the search.

Maaleh Shomron is the home of Yesha Council Chairman Dani Dayan and he informs that he passed the spot but 10 minutes earlier.

^

Preferred Option Three: Extending Sovereignty

No to statehood, yes to annexation is an op-ed of Dani Dayan, chairman of the Judea and Samaria Council of Settlements which suggests that "the peace process is stuck, it is time for Israel to protect its citizens and interests by annexing its population centers in Judea and Samaria".


Excerpts:

...Ever since Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed that pathetic [Oslo] agreement that was composed in secret in the Norwegian capital, the entire world has been playing a game of pretend. At the beginning, the game was innocent...But over the past few years, the game has turned cynical...

The Oslo Accords, the Road Map, the diplomatic process, two states for two peoples – all of these are synonyms for a situation that can never lead to an agreement or to peace...The Israeli minimum and the Palestinian minimum simply do not overlap. When a mathematician encounters this type of equation, he may feel very frustrated, but he knows that even years of attempts will not bring him any solutions. It’s a waste of his time.

There is no solution to the system of equations in the Middle East, partly because the Palestinians will never give up the return of the refugees and because the Jews will never give up the Temple Mount, but primarily because the Palestinians want to establish a state without putting an end to the conflict. They want their state (like the Palestinian state in Gaza that has been in existence for some six years) to serve as a spring board for the ongoing destruction of the State of Israel.

...Why waste more years in fruitless discussions or in useless negotiations that merely provide income for the owners of five-star hotels and conference centers throughout the world? Why continue a process that has brought nothing but frustration and humiliation to US president after president? In the current constellation, the diplomatic process is not only useless – it’s counterproductive...if we could only admit the simple fact, which we all know in our hearts to be true – that there will not be a Palestinian state – then we would be left with three possibilities. The first – a unilateral Israeli withdrawal and tossing the keys to whoever catches them – died with disengagement. Any reasonable Israeli understands that this would mean suicide for Israel. The second – maintaining and enforcing the current status quo – is a possibility. In contrast to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s contentions that the status quo is not sustainable, the status quo could become, to use terminology taken from games theory, a stable equilibrium. But this would not be optimal for Israel.

...option three is annexation. The area referred to as “Area C” in the Oslo Accords, the home of more than 350,000 Israelis and to only some 50,000 Palestinians, must become an integral part of the State of Israel...That is what Benjamin Netanyahu must do now: He must extend Israeli sovereignty over most of Judea and Samaria.

Read it all.

P.S.  I prefer the term "extending sovereignty" to 'annexation'.


^

Peace Blocked? Really?

From Patrick Martin's piece in today's Globe and Mail, entitled:

Do these Israeli settlers block the path to peace?

Excerpts:

The fire started easily. Midway through July, the relentless sun had turned the grass and scrub into tinder. A couple of molotov cocktails tossed on the ground were enough to get it going. A stiff wind out of the west made sure it spread quickly. It raced across the open hillsides where sheep and goats often grazed, and leapt into the olive groves of the Palestinian farmers who live below the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar.

As a reporter watched, the farmers rushed outside and tried hopelessly to tamp out the flames with olive branches. But the flames spread too rapidly, and the groves were quickly overwhelmed. A fire brigade from the nearby Palestinian city of Nablus arrived but could not get its water tank near enough to the fire.

On the hillside above the fire, half a dozen young men from Yitzhar were making their way slowly back to the settlement, stopping every few minutes to turn and look back at their handiwork. Above, inside the guarded settlement, a bunch of the hilltop youth, as they are known, looked down excitedly. “Ayzeh yofi!” some exclaimed (“How beautiful!”), clapping each other on the back. A couple of the youths carried large jugs of water down to their thirsty friends below.

[actually, 4 Arab youths are suspected of setting the blaze and were picked up byt the IDF and Martin adds this at the end: A few days later, the guard at the settlement’s entrance gate explained the cause of the scorched bushes and earth just below the gate – at least as it had been told to him.

“The Arabs set a fire,” he said. “They tried to burn us out.”]

...The extremists are a minority of the settlers, and not large enough in number to defeat a determined government action. But their political and symbolic influence is disproportionate – as is their will to defend their convictions to the end, which alarms Israel’s armed forces...At Israel’s insistence, however, there will have to be adjustments to account for areas where large concentrations of settlers now live. That land is to be swapped for land on Israel’s side of the frontier, which will go to Palestine. The problem is that as many as 160,000 settlers will be outside the blocs that are to be traded to Israel...
Many of them won’t go without a fight. “People talk about the violent resistance when the settlements in Gaza were evacuated,” says Dani Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, the settlers’ political organization. He is referring to the 2005 settlers’ eviction ordered by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and carried out by the Israeli army. “If they think evicting 8,000 people in Gaza was difficult, wait until they try to evict 160,000.”...A secular Israeli, Mr. Dayan was born in Argentina and now runs a software company. From his majestic, modern home in the affluent settlement of Maale Shomron., you can see the office towers of Tel Aviv, just 20 kilometres away.

Photo credit: Heidi Levine


He is an outspoken critic of the hilltop youth and other extremists, but he’s convinced that the settlements of the West Bank are “irreversible.” Ordering their forcible eviction, he says, “would break the backbone of Israeli society, and no responsible Israeli prime minister will do that.”

At least, not without paying a steep price.

...The quality-of-lifers, though numerous – about 150,000 – are pragmatic. They will vote to remain in their attractive communities, but they will not fight to retain them. The security patriots – perhaps 20,000 – would never think of fighting against Israeli soldiers, but their numbers have declined as a proportion of the West Bank communities.

It is the religious zealots who have grown in number and intensity.

...“We want everyone to know this land is ours,” says Mrs. Shoham, 48. It was “given to us by God.” She points a little way to east to where God is said to have entered into his covenant with Abraham, promising this area to the chosen people, the Jews.  “No one has the right to give it away,” Mrs. Shoham says, taking a swipe at the government of Benjamin Netanyahu,...

...Last month, the commander of Israel’s forces in the West Bank called for the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva to be closed. General Avi Mizrahi said that several of the yeshiva leaders hold views that are not “consistent with democracy” and incite “Jewish terror” such as the attacks on nearby Arab towns and villages.

Avraham Binyamin, a spokesman for the settlement of Yitzhar, says Gen. Mizrahi, an army commander, had no business making such remarks. Accusations of inciting terrorism are “nonsense,” says Mr. Binyamin. “Terrorism is something that has to be proved – judged in a court of law – and no one has done anything like that with regard to the yeshiva.”

Mr. Binyamin did not deny that there have been acts of violence against Palestinians and their property carried out by youths of Yitzhar. But he argued that “Jews in Judea and Samaria suffer from real terrorism” such as the murder in March of five members of a family in the nearby settlement of Itamar. “To come along and accuse people when they respond to this sort of thing,” he said, “is like accusing a hungry child of stealing bread.”

...“The international community today is obsessed with this immediate solution of two states,” says Mr. Dayan, the Yesha leader. “It is futile.” Having a Palestinian state on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Mr. Dayan says, is not a formula for peace. “Peace will come if the perception of Israel is that it cannot be beaten,” he says. “We [the settlements] are not an obstacle to peace. … We strengthen Israel’s perception of being a strong country and therefore we bring peace closer.”

...Is compromise possible? Not according to Mr. Dayan. The maximum he believes Israel can afford to offer in negotiations isn’t close to the minimum that Palestinian leaders need. However, “that’s not as terrible as it sounds,” he insists. “We can reach a modus vivendi – an accommodation that is less than peace, less than a final-status solution – but that will make the life of all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, better.”

Such a situation “has its shortcomings,” Mr. Dayan acknowledges, including continuing to withhold full political rights from the Palestinians. But if both sides work to improve Palestinian living conditions, it’s better than the futile peace process, he says.

This idea – a well-provided, semi-autonomous Palestinian authority – is the most today’s West Bank settlers say they’ll agree to. Tomorrow’s settlers, with their radical yeshiva educations, likely won’t support even that...

^

President's Conference - Part Three

Carl has done a very good job of detailing what went on at the session devoted to Israel-Diaspora Relations this morning.  So, read him and I will add some other details and observations.

But first, the dramatis personea:

(left to right: Moderator Shmuel Rosen, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Dani Dayan, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger and Prof. Dina Pinto.  Photo credit: YMedad)

As expected, Dani, who I knew was well prepared, did an excellent opening salvo.  He described acts that he thought were beyond criticism and dialogue and exchange of views and then declared that they were anti-Israel.  I will have to do some more research but Jeremy's line of defense was to prevaricate and deny and then to declare that J Street wasn't attacking Israel (in the instance of the UN Security resolution on Jewish communities in Yesha: "...we cannot support a U.S. veto of a Resolution that closely tracks long-standing American policy and that appropriately condemns Israeli settlement policy") but, acting as Americans, they were supporting an American policy.  Did you get that?  That was "dual loyalty" at its worse - backhanding Israel and then denying they did it as Jews.  Dani also noted that all this talk of the "tent" is problematic because what J Street is doing is sneaking in to this community tent and subverting from within.

Amos Oz's daughter, Fania Oz-Salzburger, actually said two things memorable: the first, that Israel's need to learn the new global language and get nuances correct (Carl has on this "She says brush up your English and don't play into anti-Israel hands" which is true but I think that, at this point, she really did express concern about Israelis, even well-meaning ones, who adopt terms that indicate to Israel's enemies that the enemies are right in that they lose the semantic under-layers - and I was thinking them so much about her father).  The second was her attempt to portray pre-1967 kibbutzim as the legitimate expression of "the Zionist settlement enterprise" whereas the post-1967 Yesha communities are not.  That attempt at distinguishing, of course, makes no difference to Arabs, local or others, and so Fania, professorship and all, was simply, to quote her, 'playing into the hands of Israel's enemies'.  She also said at the end that the Yesha communities were a real danger to Israel's existence and therefore it is quite legitimate a target for criticism.

Poor Dina Pinto.  She had to deal with the panel, explain why ethnicity and God are not in the lingo of Europe and then saw fit to attack Chief Rabbi Sacks for daring to declare that "human rights" is the new mutation of anti-semitism which always rides on the central motif of discourse (in the Middle Ages - religion; in the 19th-20th century - science and now human rights).

The alliance between Dani and Rabbi Yoffie, - who, I must note, not only remembered when we met long ago but is aware that I blog (see, there are advantage to blogging) and I must have said something very negative about him for him to recall my activity, - was played almost perfectly by Dani, even when he noted that Reform Judaism realized the era of its ways when it was anti-Zionist and decided to come back into the tent in 1937.  I am sure, though, that few youngsters there were aware of that prehistoric event (and ARZA only joined to Zionist Organization in 1978).

The episode with Judge Goldstone and the South African Zionist Federation (Carl writes: "South African Zionist Federation delegate raises Goldstone...Adds quick anecdote. They asked Goldstone whether he believed the Israeli government was responsible for war crimes and Goldstone said no") is inadequate a retelling.

The man actually said that he asked Goldstone if he truly believed that Israel purposefully committed 'war crimes' and he said that Goldstone admitted he had a problem with "this [Israeli] government" but he pointed out to the judge that the government that led Operation Cast Lead was a Kadima government, not Likud.  I think that is an important addition.

One other matter.  Dani Dayan revealed that he had met the members of a Congressional delegation led by J Street.  I know someone who was invited to meet with a J Street group earlier and was heavily pressured to withdraw due to the firm opposition to any contacts with J Street and the need to ostracize them.  I do not think it fair to say one thing and to do another. [Dani adds: "I never pressed anyone not to meet J Street.

Additionally, I don't consider it as meeting J street but as meeting 5 members of Congress.]

One last thing, with thanks to David Bedein who reminded me.

Who wrote the following:

Western political leaders have acquired a concern for 'Arab-Palestinian homelessness', which is selfishly economic rather than humanitarian.  At the same time they ignore that three quarters of the original Palestine Mandate area is now under Palestinian-Arab rule.  The sooner disaspora Jews and the Hebrew nation recognize these new realities, the stronger they will be.

The Hebrew renaissance offers a painful choice to Jews.  They can live in the diaspora, often  facing isolation, persecution and ambivalent identities, or they can return to their ancient land and face perils, but with a chance for honorable self-fulfillment and an end to wandering...

It was Yitzhaq Ben-Ami, father of Jeremy Ben-Ami, on page 544 of his book.
Years of Wrath, Days of Glory.

Think about that.


P.S.

Arutz 7 has a video up, in Hebrew, of course and here is their interview in English with Dany.

Jewlicious.

P.P.S.  Youtube.
^

Annexation - An Option Or Not? Or When?

Dani Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, was interviewed for the Washington Times.

The headline reads:

Settler leader: West Bank annexation 'not an option'

Dani, described as "The head of the Yesha Council, the largest organization representing the 300,000-plus Jewish residents of the West Bank, [who] stands at the forefront of efforts to prevent the world's vision of a Palestinian state from becoming reality" is quoted saying

"The aim [of Yesha] is to make sure that Judea and Samaria are kept as an integral part of Israel...Yet in the same breath, Mr. Dayan says he opposes bringing the disputed area under Israeli sovereignty.

"I don't think that annexation is an option right now," he says. "It's not an option because of the international arena, because of constraints that we are well aware of. Also because of the question of citizenship for the Arab population and other practical questions. I think that every person that watches the developments understands that annexation is not within the range of realistic options Israel has."

...Mr. Dayan says that though he theoretically supports annexing the West Bank "in the long term," any such move would have to be preceded by a shift of "one of the major geopolitical parameters."

"For instance, I can foresee that if some day there is a regime change in Jordan, which is a country with a predominantly Palestinian population, that will be a major change that will open a whole range of solutions that today are not viable and suddenly will become viable."

He quickly emphasizes that he does not advocate Israeli action to precipitate such an outcome.

I think that is a fair position, in a pragmatic political sense. However, the issue of rights was missing and, knowing Dani, I am sure they were touched upon but in the public diplomacy arena the field must always be assured to be balanced. The Arabs constantly refer to their "rights", the "justness" of their cause and we are behooved to make sure that in semantic terms, at the very least, our central message must include the basic fundamentals of the "conflict". They must be mentioned and even explained. We cannot assume that journalists know what we know. Even a relatively sympathetic, or an understanding one or a fair one.

And this is a great anecdote:

Mr. Dayan took a lobbying trip to Washington in September...[and] On his flight back from Washington, Mr. Dayan recounts that he found himself seated across the aisle from Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. After some hesitation, he introduced himself.

"We chatted for 30 minutes," Mr. Dayan says. "I suspect that he tried on me the speech he has prepared for Jewish communities in the United States, full of empty slogans and cliches, and after some 30 minutes, a British guy that was sitting in the row beside us told us, 'Guys, it's very interesting, but I want to sleep.'"

"And so, once again, Great Britain damaged the prospects of peace in the Middle East," he says.

^

For Those Who Comprehend French

Dani Dayan interviewed on Radio France.

The reaction of the Chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities on the recent murder of a teenager in Bat-Ayin.

Quotable Words

Despite the inconclusive results of Tuesday's general elections, it is clear that the political Right will have a majority in the 18th Knesset, leading Yesha Council head Danny Dayan to say that Israeli voters made "an obvious and unequivocal ideological decision...for years we've been hearing of a consensus within the Israeli public regarding the two-state solution and the need for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but the recent elections have proven this to be nothing more than a corrupt spin."

..."The election results are definitely encouraging from our standpoint. The Likud had clearly stated during its campaign that the era of withdrawals has come to an end and that no Jewish settlement will be uprooted," Dayan said.

Source

Yesha, Mitchell on Australia Media

US peace envoy arrives in Israel

AM - Thursday, 29 January , 2009 08:12:00

Reporter: Ben Knight

PETER CAVE: Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has arrived in Israel...[and] Middle East correspondent Ben Knight reports from Jerusalem:-

...George Mitchell's report formed part of the basis of the roadmap for peace which called on Palestinians to end violent attacks on Israel and for Israel to stop building in the settlements.

Clearly Palestinian attacks on Israel continue, and not just from Gaza.

But almost a decade after George Mitchell's last mission here, settlements are still expanding in the West Bank. A new report by the organisation Peace Now says at least 1500 structures were built in West Bank settlements last year; and that only four outposts - where settlers illegally set up caravans to claim new land - have been evacuated.

(Sound of car pulling up)

I'm on a hilltop near the Palestinian village of Sinjel [that's out by us in the Shiloh Bloc of communities] with Israeli Dror Etkes whose full-time job is keeping an eye on building in the settlements.

DROR ETKES: From here we can see about five, six, seven different outposts and another three, or four, five settlements.

BEN KNIGHT: And all of those outposts are illegal, according to Israeli law?

DROR ETKES: Well, it's even more complicated. [it sure is. all of them, except one, I think, are within the zoned plans deposited with various government ministries over the years] But the big part of construction also within the settlements is illegal according to Israeli law.

BEN KNIGHT: From where we're standing, we see a newly bulldozed road leading to an outpost, cutting straight across paddocks owned by the Arab village nearby. Yet Dror Etkes says the Israeli Government will do nothing.

DROR ETKES: The people who have done it know very well that they enjoy full impunity and nothing would happen to them. They know it simply because they have done very, very similar things in many, many other parts of the West Bank not too far away from here and nothing happened to them before.

BEN KNIGHT: George Mitchell is clearly no stranger to the settlement issue but the war in Gaza - which flared again just hours before his arrival - has already coloured his visit.

(Sound of person talking over loudspeaker)

I'm here outside the house of the Israeli President Shimon Peres where the settler movement has organised a truck with a big billboard on the back. It shows a picture of Tel Aviv and outside of that picture are poking the tail ends of three missiles. It's here for George Mitchell to see as he drives past and read the sign in English that says, "A Palestinian state, qassam missiles in all our cities".

DANNY DAYAN: The establishment of a Palestinian state is the potential problem and not the solution.

BEN KNIGHT: The settler council spokesman is Danny Dayan.

DANNY DAYAN: It will be a launching pad for further aggression against the state of Israel and I will think it will have catastrophic consequences for the world peace.

PETER CAVE: Israeli settler council spokesman Danny Dayan

ending Ben Knight's report.