Shtayyeh vows to prosecute those behind activist’s death amid growing anti-PA protests
The Palestinian Authority commission of inquiry into the death of political activist Nizar Banat is expected to publish its findings within the next 48 hours, as Palestinians continued to protest his alleged killing by PA security forces.
Banat, 44, died during a raid on his home in Hebron by PA security officers last Thursday. The PA has not provided any details about the circumstances that led to his death.
Eyewitnesses claim that Banat, an outspoken critic of the PA leadership, was beaten to death by more than 25 officers who came to arrest him.
Banat’s death has sparked a wave of unprecedented protests in the West Bank, especially in Ramallah, where many Palestinians have been demonstrating against PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA security services.
PA officials have accused Hamas and ousted Fatah leader Mohammad Dahlan, who is based in the United Arab Emirates, of exploiting the death of the activist to incite Palestinians against Abbas and the Palestinian leadership.
Denouncing the alleged “assassination” of Banat, Hamas and Dahlan have called on Palestinians to take to the streets to protest against Abbas and the “repressive” measures of the PA security forces.
Hours after the death of Banat was announced by Jibreen al-Bakri, Hebron’s Palestinian governor, PA Prime Minister
Mohammad Shtayyeh formed a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident. The committee is headed by PA Justice Minister Mohammad al-Shalaldeh.
On Monday, in his first public statement on the incident, Shtayyeh said the commission of inquiry “is doing its work
Palestinians – and that its status, which is now designated as survey land whose status is unclear, can be changed to state land.
After the land’s status is confirmed, the government would be expected to authorize Evyatar as a new settlement or a new neighborhood of one, according to the deal.
Earlier this month, the Samaria Regional Council submitted an Evyatar master plan to the Civil Administration that called for it to be designated as a neighborhood of Kfar Tapuah having 100 homes.
In exchange, according to the deal, the families and activists living in Evyatar will leave voluntarily by the end of the week and the modular structures and equipment at the site will remain there until the hilltop can be legally developed.
THE INITIATIVE to build a new Jewish community at the Evyatar site first arose in 2013, when settlers built an outpost there in response to the terror attack at the Tapuah junction which claimed the life of Evyatar Borovsky, 31. The IDF evacuated the site fairly swiftly and continues to prevent settlers from rebuilding there.
Settlers and right-wing activists returned to Evyatar in May after a Palestinian terrorist fatally shot 19-year-old Yehuda Guetta while he stood at a bus stop at the same junction.
Dagan said that he would have expected that after the Guetta murder, both the Right and Left parties in Bennett’s coalition would unite around the rational Zionist repose to create a new settlement in Judea and Samaria.
“Unfortunately, this did not happen,” Dagan said.
“Therefore, for us, this is not a day of joy. It is not a day of happiness, but it is a day of progress,” Dagan said as he spoke of the positive benefits of the deal.
He sat flanked by activists behind a number of folding tables, from which hung Israeli flags.
Weiss said that “it is painful to think of the families that have to leave, but I am already dreaming of the ones that will come.”
The achievement here was not measured by whether those in Evyatar stood firm against the government and the IDF, said Weiss, who is a former Kedumim Council head. Success was measured by their ability to sway the government to move the goal post in their direction, something that has surely occurred here.
The government and the IDF are strong, she said, so the objective is to remind them of the importance of the Jewish return to the Land of Israel.
“We have to bring the government to a higher spiritual, principled and pioneering plain,” Weiss said.
A VETERAN settler leader, she wore a white button-down shirt and her hair was covered by a
blue scarf.
She recalled how she had spent almost two months with the families on Evyatar, who had lived without basic necessities.
“There is great ache in the heart,” but if “I have to compare the weight of the joy with that of the pain, then the joy wins out over the pain,” Weiss said.
“We have successfully climbed an additional rung in the building of the Land of Israel,” she said.
The Evyatar initiative is unusual in the annals of the settlement movement for its speed in galvanizing so many families and the scope of the construction of so many modular homes so quickly.
Health Minister Michael Horowitz (Meretz) said that his party opposes any attempt to authorize the outpost.
“Evyatar is an illegal outpost and must be evacuated: period. It’s the law,” Horowitz said. “We are bound to the law. No one is above the law and it is not open to interpretation. This is a clear and decisive position.”
The Left wing group Peace Now accused Gantz of capitulating to the settlers by contemplating a deal.
“The coalition leaders should work for full eviction of this illegal outpost. No ifs no buts!” Peace Now tweeted. all expressed a readiness and willingness to compromise when they agreed to form their surprising government two weeks ago. The music that accompanied the signing of the coalition agreements was that there is more the parties agree on than they disagree on, and that with good will and understanding, even the issues they disagree upon can either be worked out or avoided.
The idea behind the government was that after two and a half years of a country deeply polarized and divided, the time had come to find common ground – and that it was possible to find it. The idea was to create a new paradigm for this fractured country, whereby one side would not beat the other; where one side would not pin down the arm of the other in some ideological arm-wrestling match.
Two issues are currently in front of the government that will test its ability to do this and to compromise among itself. The first is the fate of the recently established illegal outpost at Evyatar, and the second is the Family Reunification Law.
Both are hurdles for the government because of the wide ideological composition of the coalition.
Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beytenu will have trouble supporting the forced eviction of some 50 families who built an outpost at Evyatar after a terrorist murdered yeshiva student Yehuda Guetta in May at nearby Tapuah junction.
And on the second issue, the United Arab List (Ra’am) and Meretz will have trouble voting for the extension of an 18-yearold
law preventing the automatic granting of citizenship to West Bank and Gaza Palestinians (or citizens of enemy states such as Syria, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon) who marry Israeli Arabs.
In both instances – instead of running headlong into a situation that will leave one half of the government feeling good, and the other feeling sour; one half feeling victorious, and the other half vanquished – there are currently serious efforts to find a compromise solution.
That very search for a compromise is refreshing and sets a welcome tone for this factious nation: that confrontation is not inevitable, and that creative solutions need to be sought for problems so that neither side feels fully dissatisfied.
HOW THE government deals with Evyatar will go a long way in setting this government’s tone, just as the way former prime minister Ehud Olmert dealt with the first evacuation of Amona in February 2006 set a tone for his premiership.
At the time of the Amona evacuation, one that a Knesset committee of inquiry found was done with excessive force, Olmert was acting prime minister, following Ariel Sharon’s incapacitating stroke. Elections were just a month off, and after the Supreme Court green-lighted the evacuation of the outpost illegally built on private Palestinian land, Olmert acted immediately.
With the election just around the corner, and an interest in taking Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza and applying it to parts of the West Bank within the framework of what he called the “convergence plan,” Olmert was keen on showing that he could and would take on the settlers.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former director-general of the Yesha Council (the umbrella organization representing communities in Judea and Samaria), has no such interest.
On the contrary, Bennett has an interest in showing that regardless of what Netanyahu says about him day and night, there will be no evacuations or major concessions in Judea and Samaria under his watch, and that he is not a puppet of the Left. Bennett has an interest in settling the issue peacefully, without images of soldiers forcibly evicting Jews.
On the other side of the coalition fence, Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz and MK Moss Raz, a former Peace Now leader, have said the outpost was established illegally, the laws must be enforced and it therefore must be evacuated.
A compromise formula was drawn up, whereby the 50 families at the site would leave this week, and the structures there will remain and serve as a yeshiva and as a temporary IDF outpost until the question of the outpost’s legality is decided.
Whether this compromise can now be agreed upon and implemented, whereby neither Bennett’s Yamina nor Horowitz’s Meretz get everything they want,
but where each party gets something, will be a test as to whether this government will be able to work going forward.
AND THIS is not the only area where the government is expending energy looking for a compromise way out of a problem. Efforts are continuing to find a middle ground that will enable Ra’am and Meretz to vote for a one-year extension of the Family Reunification Law, despite their ideological opposition to it.
Netanyahu made clear on Monday that the Likud was not going to throw the coalition a “life jacket” on this matter and would only vote for a two-month extension if the coalition promotes and advances a stricter version of the law, something that would rattle Ra’am and Meretz even more.
Unable to count on the Likud or its satellite parties to vote for an extension of this law – even though they have done so every year for the last 17 – will necessitate creative thinking and a willingness for Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beytenu inside the coalition to find a compromise with Meretz and Ra’am over this issue.
The hunt is on, which in and of itself is positive and sends an important message, though what ultimately matters is whether a compromise can be found.
The very structure of the current government – Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has veto power over Bennett now, and Bennett will have veto power over Lapid when he takes over in two years – forces compromise. It is a power-sharing arrangement that can only work if there is accommodation.
Columnist Shmuel Rosner put it well earlier this month in The New York Times: “At a time when polarization is such a grave social and political threat, Israel might have awkwardly stumbled into a remedy: an enforced regime of compromise.”
But the early tests posed by Evyatar and the Family Reunification Law will indicate whether this “enforced regime of compromise” is enough to bring about the actual conciliation needed for this government to survive.
Jewish community representatives will attend the events.
In addition, Lapid will visit Israel’s pavilion at the Expo 2020 world exposition, which will begin in October.
Ambassador to the US and UN Gilad Erdan on Sunday announced he was resigning his post in Washington and would leave as soon as Bennett appointed a replacement.
Erdan’s time in Washington was supposed to end in November.
“It was a true honor to represent Israel to our closest ally,” he said. “During my tenure, I worked to establish ties with the Biden administration, as well as to strengthen the bipartisan support. Those ties were proven during the Gaza operation when the US halted anti-Israel initiatives in the [UN Security Council] and approved additional funding for the Iron Dome.”
Erdan said he plans to continue to represent Israel at the UN.