ZOA: Don’t Cancel Planned Home Building in Jerusalem; Stop Illegal Arab Building in Area C; Oppose Hosting Terrorist Dictator Abbas
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
ZOA strongly opposes Israel essentially rewarding terrorists by deciding to destroy the 15-year-old Homesh Yeshiva, a few days after six Arab terrorists murdered Homesh Yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman, a beloved young Jewish husband and father of a 3-year old toddler.
On December 22nd, 100 rabbis called for the Israeli government to prevent the destruction of the Homesh Yeshiva. On December 23, at the conclusion of Shiva for Yehuda Dimentman, 15,000 Israelis (including several Knesset members) went to Homesh to join Yehuda Dimentman’s family in a protest to prevent the yeshiva from being demolished.
Israeli Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar also supported keeping the Yeshiva intact, and legalizing it, and correctly stated that removing the yeshiva following the deadly attack on Yehuda Dimentman would send a message rewarding terror and give the attackers an undeserved victory.
But the IDF, Border Police, and the Israeli Civil Administration began razing modular structures at Homesh around the yeshiva, and stopped water containers from getting into Homesh, leaving 70 yeshiva students and four families, including 10 children, without water.
We are informed that the Yeshiva itself is still slated for destruction, and could be destroyed at any time. ZOA urges the Israeli government to not take this mistaken step, and to instead rebuild and legalize Homesh, and other northern Samaria Jewish communities, in memory of Yehuda Dimentman, of blessed memory.
Arab terrorists are being emboldened by Israel’s dangerous appeasement policies, as well as by the Palestinian Authority’s anti-Israel incitement and paying Arabs pensions to murder Jews:
- The Israeli government deciding to destroy Homesh after Arab terrorists gunned down Homesh Yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman;
- Israel’s failure to take action against the massive numbers of illegal Arab structures erected on Israeli-owned land;
- Israel’s failure to approve building homes for Jews in Jerusalem, apparently bowing to outrageous pressures from the Biden administration (See “ZOA to Israel: Approve Construction of Jewish Homes in Jerusalem Despite Biden’s Outrageous Interference With Israel’s Sovereign Decisions,” Dec. 8, 2021.)
There was a huge increase in Palestinian Arab terror attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria this past year. IDF data reveals that in 2021, there were: 5,532 recorded stone-throwing attacks (up from 4,002 in 2020); 1,022 firebomb attacks (up from 751 in 2020); 61 shootings (double the 31 shootings in 2020); and 18 stabbing incidents (double the 9 stabbings in 2020).
Earlier today, Arab terrorist rioters threw glass bottles and rocks at 20 Jewish high school students who were walking through Jerusalem’s Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood, injuring several of the students. Yesterday, Arab terrorists threw boulders at 2 buses near Jerusalem, shattering the windshield so that glass flew everywhere. In the past six weeks, there were over 60 such Arab terror attacks in this area.
This month, NGO Regavim’s satellite mapping project revealed that there are now over seventy-two thousand (72,274) illegal Palestinian Arab structures on Israeli land, including 5,097 new illegal structure since 2019, in Area C – the portion of Judea and Samaria legally under Israeli control pursuant to the Oslo accords. The Palestinian Authority is continuing to build 7 new illegal structures per day in Area C, funded by the European Union, on Israeli-owned land, in strategic locations that endanger Jerusalem, Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and much of the rest of Israel. In addition, the PA has illegally seized over 93 million square meters of Israeli lands for agricultural projects. Notably, there is plenty of empty land in Areas A & B, which are in the Palestinian Authority areas – but the Palestinian Arabs are instead illegally seizing Israel’s lands. This rampant illegal Arab building a disaster that will enable more terror attacks against Jews– but the Israeli government is doing virtually nothing about it.
Why is Israel’s government allowing this massive Palestinian Arab theft of Israel’s lands – while preventing Jewish homes from being built and planning to destroy the yeshiva of a Jewish terror victim?
ZOA strongly urges Israel’s government to immediately change these dangerous, wrongheaded policies that embolden anti-Jewish terror.