Five families set up a new illegal outpost on a strategic hilltop in the northern West Bank on Thursday, a month after the death of Religious Zionist leader Rabbi Chaim Druckmann in a possible test for the new government.
The founders told Hebrew media that the outpost, named Or Chaim, was purposely built near the settlement of Migdalim and overlooks the Trans-Samarian Highway in order to impede Palestinian territorial contiguity.
Nev Schindler, Druckmann’s grandson and a leader of the initiative, said establishing the settlement was “the best way to remember my grandfather,” and hoped more families would join.
“We call on the entire nation of Israel to strengthen and join our activities. The campaign for Judea and Samaria doesn’t stop for a moment, we need your side to win,” Schindler said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank.
Druckmann was one of the key founders of the settler movement, Gush Emunim – literally the Bloc of Believers – and was a major player in Israel’s politics for decades. His movement eventually shifted the Religious Zionism political mainstream from the center-left position it had maintained at the state’s founding, to the far right, and then to the far right, where it stands today.
Yedaya Stein, another member of the group, interpreted the family’s actions as a reaction to the “systematic takeover by the Palestinian Authority” of territory.
Rabbi Chaim Druckmann during a press conference in Jerusalem on March 22, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
They said, “We left behind our well-furnished and warm homes and came here to occupy and defend the land.”
“We are confident that the current right-wing government will take care of this strategic point, and unlike its predecessor, will aid and support the hill, lest God forbid, make a raid, destroy and evacuate us,” he said, head Referring to the hard-right government of Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories told The Times of Israel that the matter was being investigated.
The establishment of the agreement is a potential test for the coalition which is committed to establishing Israel’s control over the region.
Coalition deals between Likud and its religious and far-right allies include a vague promise to annex the West Bank to Israel, a pledge to legalize dozens of unauthorized settlements, and the provision of large funds for road construction and public transport in the West Bank Is. ,
It also gives Bezel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism Party, a ministerial position within the Ministry of Defense with responsibility for certain civilian issues in the West Bank.
Netanyahu reportedly on Thursday in a possible sign of restraint on settlement issues ordered A proposal to formally split the Tel Zion neighborhood from the central West Bank’s Kochav Ya’akov settlement has been shelved, set to be approved by the cabinet on Sunday.
The plan was put forward by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party to better serve residents of Haredi settlements, but after hosting a senior official from President Joe Biden’s administration over concerns over the optics of effectively building a new settlement Netanyahu apparently blocked. One who opposes settlement expansion.
While the international community considers all settlements illegal, Israel distinguishes between settlements built and permitted by the Ministry of Defense on state-owned land, and illegal outposts built without the necessary permits, often on private Palestinian land.
However, outposts are sometimes created with the tacit approval of the state, and successive governments have sought to legalize at least some unrecognized neighborhoods as a result.
Jacob Magid and Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.
