Impressive Success for the Third Conference for the Application of Sovereignty

It is with great satisfaction that the heads of the Women in Green organization, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, sum up the tremendous conference that was held in Jerusalem , Tuesday January 1st 2013, that called for the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. “Already in the first stages of the preparations for the third Conference for the Application of Sovereignty, there was a feeling of outstanding interest in the topic. After the first venue chosen for the Conference, the Bible Lands Museum, was too small for everyone who wanted to attend, we then were in contact with a hall that could seat 1000 people, This place, too, was too small for all the attendees.”

Katsover and Matar opened the event and focused on the political vacuum in Judea and Samaria – a vacuum that has existed for 45 years and leaves a state of uncertainty. “This vacuum fosters the hopes of the Arabs for the establishment of a state in these areas, fans the flames of intifadas and terror, and brings international pressures on Israel with the demand for political concessions.”

They assert: “The time has come to put an end to this vacuum, and to apply Israeli sovereignty. The time is ripe for this because of: the flourishing settlement enterprise that comprises some 400,000 inhabitants in about 250 blooming settlements; the people’s understanding that concessions weaken our stand and bring the terror of Grads and Katushas to the center of the country; and the Edmund Levy report unequivocally establishing that Judea and Samaria are not occupied territory, and that the settlements have legal standing.”

Right at the beginning of the conference, the two presented a poll that had been conducted especially for the Conference, that examined the stance of the national public in Israel on the question of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. The poll, that was conducted by the Hagal Hahadash research institute, did not include settlers or the ultra-Orthodox. Its results show that 73.2 per cent support the application of sovereignty, 9 per cent are opposed, and 17.8 per cent responded “don’t know” or refused to answer.

The two explain the trend that underlies the poll, and say: “The poll was commissioned especially, to apply pressure on the politicians from the camp of the right; accordingly, the Conference, too, was organized to be held before the election. The national politicians should pay special attention to this poll. This will be the burning issue in the next primaries.”

The Conference was opened by the speech of the Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, Minister Yuli Edelstein, who expressed his support for the move. “During the past two years I have spoken out on this subject. I imagined that there would be a response, to the tune of ‘delusional’ and ‘crazy,’ but this did not happen. When one speaks in a serious manner, nonaggressively, the responses, as well, relate to this as a subject worthy of discussion,” Edelstein said.

The Minister of Public Diplomacy added: “As Minister of Public Diplomacy, when I go abroad or am in a meeting with my colleagues from abroad, when the topic of our right to the Land of Israel and Judea and Samaria arises, I explain to them and they say that this is interesting, but your government has chosen not to apply sovereignty. That is, there is a double discourse here that arouses doubts.”

The Chairman of the Knesset House Committee, MK Yariv Levin, stated that “a vision must be presented, and only one who sees the vision will attain the goal. This is how the State was established, this is how sovereignty was applied in Jerusalem and over the Golan, and this is how we will attain sovereignty over all parts of Eretz Israel. At times the vision clashes with tactics, that require sophistication, but specifically for this reason the vision must be seen.”

The coalition chairman, MK Zeev Elkin, too, spoke in favor of the move, which he maintains can be implemented in stages. “The State of Israel curbed the frenzied running to retreats, and I hope that in the near future we will move on to a new era of moving forward, instead of being on the defensive,” he said.

Candidate for the Nineteenth Knesset Moshe Feiglin argued that we must, first and foremost, apply Israeli law to Israeli Arabs. “If anyone thinks that we need sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, he doesn’t have any idea what is happening in Lod, Nazareth, Jaffa, and Ramleh. I receive telephone calls from old women, the last to remain in these neighborhoods constantly threatened and attacked by Arabs,” he declared, and told of one such chilling encounter.

Adv. Alan Baker, a member of the Edmund Levy committee, related to the committee’s deliberations and decisions. He noted that the committee rejected the claim that the settlement enterprise is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. He maintained that this interpretation of the Convention is a misleading representation of the words of the formulators of the various Conventions.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar declared that “the State of Israel has made the public ignorant, so that it will not know that there is not any sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, not even Jordanian. It does this intentionally, to prevent any movement of the demand for Israeli sovereignty there.”
He argued that there is no need to relate to the position of the Arabs, since they have still not consented to Israeli sovereignty, not even in the other parts of the Land of Israel. “Have the Arabs agreed to the application of sovereignty over Tel Aviv and Haifa? They haven’t agreed to that, either. Additionally, Egypt and Jordan, that made peace treaties, have not recognized Israel as the state of the Jewish people. They have recognized us only as the State of Israel, and in their view, it has no ab initio right to exist, only after the fact. Because you defeated us in wars, we made a temporary peace treaty with you. This is the case regarding the Oslo Accords, as well. We have not yet reached the situation in which they recognize the ’48 conquests. We cannot expect them to recognize the ’67 conquests.”
Kedar further mentioned that “Fatah was created before ’67. Which Palestine do they want to liberate? There is an urban legend that they altered the Palestine Covenant, but this is a legend. There is a letter in which Arafat made a commitment to Rabin to abrogate the clauses that are contrary to the Oslo Accords. This letter was never implemented, and the State of Israel never demanded its implementation.”

Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, a Knesset candidate on the Habayit Hayehudi list, presented the spiritual, Biblical aspect of Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Israel, and expressed the hope that the demand for sovereignty will be part of the coalition agreement for his party’s entering the next government.

Yossi Dagan, deputy head of the Samaria Regional Council, presented on-the-ground data that paint a harsh picture of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens living today in an area lacking in sovereignty, with the judicial system not allowing them to lead normative lives.

The first part of the Conference ended with a new short film by Latma that was produced especially for this evening. The central message of the skit was: “A day will come, a holiday for sovereignty.”

The evening continued with a special panel that discussed one of the issues most troubling to the Israeli public:
the status of the Arabs when Israel will apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
The panel was moderated by Eran Bar-Tal, economics editor at Maariv, member of the steering committee for the application of sovereignty. (The other steering committee members include former ambassador Yoram Ettinger, Israel Prize laureate Geulah Cohen, Yehuda Glick, Itai Elitzur, Yehudit Katsover, and Nadia Matar.)
The panel participants presented a diversity of opinions:

The journalist Caroline Glick asserted that in the two precedents, in the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem, Israel was capable of dealing with the local Arabs without any special problem, when it enabled the Arabs in these places to apply for citizenship, which they could receive if they met certain criteria. “These precedents worked very well, and there is no reason why they shouldn’t work now.”

MK Prof. Aryeh Eldad sees the solution for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria as that which the United Nations proposed upon the establishment of the State of Israel: the Arabs in the Jewish state will be residents of the Jewish state, and citizens of the Arab state. In Eldad’s assessment, Jordan will fall after Syria, and it therefore should be regarded as the Palestinian state, whether or not this is good. In this spirit, the Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria must be citizens of that state when sovereignty will be applied to the entire area.

Adv. Elyakim Haetzni is of the opinion that the correct idea for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria is autonomy, to which the state will transfer from its resources, and thereby express its sovereignty. This will be after the application of sovereignty over Area C. They could receive their citizenship in the country beyond the Jordan.

Dr. Martin Sherman offered an “evacuation-compensation” plan for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. According to him, there can be only full Jewish sovereignty or full Arab sovereignty between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan, and the stronger party will prevail. We, he said, must ensure that we will be stronger.

“There is a rightwing revolution here. For years and years the right was only busy with providing a firm basis for the settlement enterprise throughout Eretz Israel. The time has come to impart legal standing, equal to that of the State of Israel, to the historical Eretz Israel,” Katsover and Matar declare.
At present, the two intend to continue this drive within the Israeli public sphere. “We are looking forward to intensive work that will lead to practical expression in every field that is relevant for the application of sovereignty, the issuing of position papers on legal, international, economic, political, moral issues, aided by experts in every field, and planning for the next Conference.”
They conclude with a quote from one of the hundreds of participants who responded to the Conference: “You provided an impressive forum for Eretz Israel. With G-d’s help, thought creates reality.”

Pictures of the conference can be seen on our website www.womeningreen.org
Link to entire conference dubbed in English (start watching at 5:00min because the first 5 minutes the crowd is watching the movie of last year’s conference) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163781#.UOPd8eQz2qo
More articles and movieclips will be sent to you in the next few days. In a few days we will please G-d also have
links to all lectures separately- in Hebrew and English.

Credit for the attached photos to SHLOMI SHALMONI

for details:
Yehudit Katsover – 050-7161818, Nadia Matar – 050-5500834
the Movement for Israel’s Tomorrow
(Women in Green)