This week the Jewish army helped tear down two Jewish hamlets, and this night they tore down yet another, Ramat Migron. In this Jewish madness of a national army siding with the nation’s enemies against its most patriotic elements, the IDF detained several Jews for trespassing in a closed military zone. How did a hamlet become a military zone in the first place, and only for demolition? Closed military zones according to the law can only be set up when there is imminent danger to Jews. In civil relations, such a false declaration would easily be recognized as forgery.

Ulpana should be a classic eminent domain case. True, the hamlet was built on private Palestinian land, but that land had been long abandoned by the time of construction, with no way for the Jewish pioneers to readily find the title. It would certainly be more efficient to compensate the Arab owners for the cost of the land—if such compensation is due at all, given the fact that in the population exchange many Jews left Arab countries with no compensation whatsoever. Yet the court did not even consider applying eminent domain to Ulpana.

Another insanity from the Israeli legal system: the government had to legalize Rehalim hamlet near Kfar Tapuach in Samaria; what was illegal there in the first place? There was no government authorization to build it. Never mind that the hamlet was built twenty years ago with government money from the Ministry of Construction. In a peculiar Israeli form of bureaucratic madness, a ministry’s money is not the government’s authorization.

The hamlets were built on state land; others are sometimes built on abandoned Palestinian property. The difference is minuscule if we consider that the amount of back taxes owned by the absentee owners greatly exceeds the value of the land, and that the property documents are dubious at best, were not registered, and were unknown to the settlers. In any case, much of Israel is built on land taken away from the Arabs, just as Arabs in other countries took over abandoned Jewish properties.

The Palestinians have refused that plan adamantly because the territory in question is really small; what matters is the location. And our settlement blocks prevent the functioning of a Palestinian state, as they were intended to do.

Thus, under Mofaz’s leadership we would resume senseless negotiations with the Palestinians, and the story will keep dragging on.

Though a district of Jerusalem, Pisgat Zeev is internationally classified as an illegal settlement.

Certainly, our right to the land has no bearing on jurisdiction, but the fact that Jews purchased it eighty years long ago is morally significant.

But why such concern about a single demolition order? There are dozens of court decisions that have been pending for years which require the demolition of illegal Arab houses and the eviction of Arab squatters. The government is never in hurry to respect these orders. In fact, the court invites such an attitude by almost never requiring a timeline for demolitions in the Arab sector.

The settlers now have three years to build new homes nearby. Such a move would violate Israel’s international obligation to refrain from building new settlements, and will likely be challenged in the court. During that time, the settlers will not be in a hurry to build anything, and the agreement will eventually fail under mutual recriminations.

Mind you, construction at the oldest Jewish site, the site of our first permanent Tabernacle location, the terrace of which can still be seen there, is now illegal due to our efforts to keep peace.

The investigation is entirely useless, as was the one opened before in Amanah. The state already conducts re-zoning to allocate land for construction. The only purpose of the criminal investigation is to satisfy Peace Now, which petitioned the High Court.

Netanyahu misses the point. The outposts are being built to symbolize the Jewish right to set our feet anyplace in the Land of Israel. That is an important symbolic issue, not a housing affair.

Encouraged by the Knesset speaker’s demand to legalize their hamlet, Migron settlers are likely to refuse Netanyahu’s offer.