The new Jewish community of Evyatar in the Northern Shomron is a fast growing village originally built in memory of Evyatar Borovsky killed in 2013 and Yehuda Guetta killed in a drive by shooting nearby earlier this year. With more than 50 buildings, the residents of the fledgling community suffer continuous assaults by nearby Arab villages and yet it is the Jewish village itself that the Bennett Government threatens to destroy.
Foreign Minister and (as former Prime Minister Netanyahu calls him) Actual Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the following to Z’Man on Monday: “The outpost will be evacuated. It is illegal. It is not at all a question of right or left. It is an order from the army and the civil administration.”
The order in question was signed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz at the end of Former Prime Minister Netanyahu’s term. Netanyahu tried to give an order back to stop it, since it is built on State Land.
Bennett’s camp has claimed that Netanyahu destroyed young communities as well. However, when one looks into the matter, the communities that were destroyed were only ones built on private Arabs land and prior to their destruction, Netanyahu approved new communities in their place to be built on State Land. Evyatar is built on State Land in a strategic spot – the Bennett government should have no reason no to retroactively approve it.
With regular terror attacks aimed at the community of Evyatar and the potential destruction of the community coming, many observers have speculated that this one issue has the potential to break apart the Bennett-Lapid-Abbas coalition.
Bennett’s challenge is that he accepted a figure head role in a Lapid government and now with Evyatar anything left of his base will leave him. More than that, if he somehow successfully approves Evyatar, the Left and Arabs will bolt the government.
The conundrum of Evyatar proves why a Prime Minister cannot come from such a small party. With no base or internal power in the coalition, there is absolutely no way to hold the coalition together over such a controversial issue.
The battle over Evyatar is far more than a potential coalition breaking situation – it represents the schizophrenic policies of the government when it comes to Jews in Judea and Samaria. Jews suffer from terror and the government does nothing about it. Arabs build freely and yet these same Jews who suffer from terror have their residences knocked down.
Evyatar’s situation is indicative of the entire battle over Area C in Judea and Samaria. Bennett can congratulate himself on sneaking into the Prime Minister’s chair, but somehow pushing is leftwing partners to stop the European Union funded Arab land theft occurring in Judea and Samaria is a whole other matter. True, Netanyahu did not do much, but in recent years, his government allowed the beginning of the potential solution to Arab land theft. The Netanyahu governments supported young Jewish farmers settling on State Lands across Judea an Samaria in order to control and stave off Arab encroachment – it has been the only thing that has worked.
No politician has clean hands with Evyatar, but in the past there was someone to talk to. Now, with Bennett becoming good friends with Mansour Abbas, the doors are all closed and it is hard to see how communities like Evyatar will be allowed to stand.