"Greater Itamar" is like a large farming village, a broad expanse of green and brown agriculture that paints the landscape and the spirit in colors of Zionism, Jewish work, organic vegetables, horses, goats, cattle, and scenic outlook points scarred by heat and wind, like none others anywhere else in Israel.
Itamar and its outposts spread eastward for about eight kilometers (five miles) from Itamar itself to Gitit in the Jordan Valley. This is strategic settlement at its best. There's nothing like these living postcards to illustrate the vital link between the Jordan Valley and the hilltops.
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Over the years, various Israeli governments have helped this enterprise exist and grow, but did so under the table. The outposts of Itamar have never been regulated and recognized as legal settlements. They aren't alone. There are dozens more "Itamars": The Shilo bloc and its outposts, and Pnei Kedem and Tzur Shalom in Gush Etzion; as well as Sde Boaz, between Neve Daniel and Jerusalem; and Havat Gilad and Givat Assaf and Asa'el. They have all been orphaned and are under a dual threat. First, because life in these outposts is complicated. Many are not connected to the electricity grid, and lack the basic budgets, benefits, and services that regulated settlements get. They also have no legal standing; they exist on paper. Thousands of structures erected there or in other unregulated settlement neighborhoods are under threat of demolition by the IDF's Civil Administration.
The other threat is a political one – they are at risk of being uprooted and evacuated. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated declarations (most recently with Jared Kushner at his side) that no settlement will be uprooted are to a large extent a delusion. So long as these communities are not defined as settlements, they are at risk of being eliminated. There are 26 obvious cases. Most of them were established 20 years ago or more. The Americans left them out of the map for the Trump peace plan because they are not recognized settlements. The Americans' map is Netanyahu's. The "plan of the century" is to a large extent his creation. The Americans say, rightly, that they cannot be more Israeli than Israel. A few years ago, the government decided to regulate the status of settlement outposts, but has done almost nothing to implement that decision. Netanyahu appointed veteran settlement leader Pinchas Wallerstein to head the project, but did not give him the tools he needed, and Wallerstein resigned.
Asa'el in the southern Hebron Hills is an outpost that is home to 70 families. It would be easy to regulate its status, but the decision has to be made. In 1983 a decision was made to found a settlement there, but the idea was frozen during the Oslo Accords process. Because the settlement was never actually established, the decision was canceled. Now it needs to be re-made, but the Netanyahu government isn't doing so much as that, even though Asa'el is located on state-owned land.
Last year, before the election, the government took a small step and declared Mevo'ot Yericho a settlement. Another possibility, attaching it to the settlement Yitav, was rejected. Dozens more outposts can be regulated exactly the same way. Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit needs to decide, just like he decided about Mevo'ot Yericho, whether to attach them to their "mother" settlements or – when that is not possible – to designate them independent settlements.
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For two years, Netanyahu has had on his desk a proposal of this nature that could save a 20-year settlement effort. The maps with and without them are very different. The outposts that have not yet been made settlements or neighborhoods of existing settlements are the difference between land and strategic contiguity with which we can live, or dozens of settlements that would be left up in the air, like a helium balloon, accessed only by a road that is surrounded by Palestinian areas.
The public needs to know the truth: the sky won't fall when Rechalim and Mevo'ot Yericho are regulated as settlements. It won't fall even if the government declares Avigayil and Asa'el settlements, or Pnei Kedem. There are dozens more like them that Netanyahu promised will not be evacuated. But so long as they do not hold the status of settlements or settlement neighborhoods, it's just an empty promise.
Even the proposal of a Basic Law that would require a national referendum for any changes to the map of Judea and Samaria, which MK Zvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) is now presenting to the Knesset and which is intended to prevent settlements in Judea and Samaria from being uprooted without a referendum – does not include these strategic outposts, only recognized settlements.
The threat to the very existence of these outposts, which have been home to thousands of Jews for two decades or more, is only part of the entanglement being slowly created in Judea and Samaria. It isn't only the declaration of Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the territory there that has been canceled or suspended. Construction in regulated, recognized settlements has also been frozen, and policing of illegal Palestinian construction in Area C is nearly non-existent.
The Civil Administration's Higher Planning Committee for Judea and Samaria has not convened for seven months, and the planning process for some 6,000 housing units is being repeatedly postponed. Although there is no cabinet decision to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria, construction is being held up in Har Gilo, Maaleh Adumim, Eli, Har Bracha, and other places. And it's not only the 6,000 units that are under delay; about half of the construction plans that have already been approved aren't moving ahead because of chronic understaffing in the Civil Administration. So the construction freeze is even wider spread.
Surprisingly, it was Defense Minister Benny Gantz who sided with the settlers this week, possibly to goad Netanyahu. Gantz announced he would be calling a meeting of the Higher Planning Committee this coming week in order to approve construction not only in consensus settlement blocs, but also in Beit El, Shilo, Nokdim, Har Bracha, and the southern Hebron Hills. The move requires Netanyahu's approval, so it's not clear what the announcement really means. But politically, at least, Gantz is opting to out-flank Netanyahu from the Right, thereby joining Yamina leader Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who have been doing the same when it comes to the settlements issue for months.
To all these quandaries we need to add the serious problem of law enforcement when it comes to the expanding illegal Palestinian construction in Area C. The Palestinians are putting up tens of thousands of houses in strategic locations. If this construction continues at the current rate, it will eventually decide the fate of Area C, and the dream of sovereignty will officially become history.
In the past decade, the number of illegal structures erected in Area C has grown from about 30,000 to some 50,000. The Palestinians know what they're doing, and are working consistently and are well-funded. Here, too, the government is failing to implement its own decisions. Only a year ago the cabinet decided to scupper the Palestinian Authority's attempt to take over Area C. It even asked the Defense Ministry to map the territory and appoint a director for the project who would present the cabinet with facts and recommendations. But in the meantime, nothing has happened.
