MK Eldad calls for nonviolent Migron protest

Security sources tell 'Post' that outpost residents will be given until Tuesday to leave of their own volition.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Migron Graffiti (370) (photo credit: Tovah Lazaroff)
Migron Graffiti (370)
(photo credit: Tovah Lazaroff)
MK Arieh Eldad (National Union) on Saturday night called on all those who support Migron to head to the West Bank outpost to nonviolently protest its pending demolition.
He issued his call after hearing from the residents of the West Bank outpost that they believed border police might arrive there on Sunday morning to forcibly remove its 50 families.
Security sources told The Jerusalem Post, however, that the residents would be given until Tuesday to leave of their own volition.
The High Court of Justice has ordered the 50 families who live in the hilltop community to leave their homes no later than Tuesday.
But as of Saturday night, the only thing that was clear to the residents was that they planned to refrain from violence.
There was no consensus whether they would leave of their own free will or have the Border Police and the IDF forcibly relocate them to a new modular housing site, situated 2 kilometers away.
Some reports in the media and from activists claimed the residents planned to leave as early as first thing Sunday morning.
Migron spokesman Itai Chemo said there have been many community meetings on the matter, but that no final decision had been taken.
On Saturday night, resident Aviela Dietch was busy doing laundry and packing school lunches for her children, even though she was unsure if she would be sending them off to class on Sunday. Like everyone else in the outpost, she was waiting to see what the morning would bring.
On Friday evening and again on Saturday, residents and guests, including Binyamin Regional Council head Avi Ro’eh, gathered together at Migron for what they feared was the community’s final Shabbat.
They prayed in the synagogue and celebrated the birthday of one of the outpost founders, Itai Harel.
Shabbat ended with a communal havdala service that involved singing and dancing.
The High Court has ordered the outpost evacuated because it was built without permits on land classified by the state as belonging to private Palestinians.
Last month, Migron residents filed a petition with the court claiming they recently purchased three property lots on which 17 homes are located. They asked the court to allow those 17 families to remain.
On Wednesday, the court insisted that every family must leave the outpost, while agreeing that the structure on lot No. 10 could remain intact until the investigation into the validity of the purchase claim was completed.
The court ordered all other outpost buildings be destroyed no later than September 11.
According to a report prepared by Talia Sasson for the government in 2005, the outpost – located in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, just outside of Jerusalem – was built in May 2001 with NIS 4.3 million from the Construction and Housing Ministry.
Migron residents, who have battled almost from the first days of the community to keep their homes, have had a hard time comprehending that they had finally reached a situation in which a reprieve was impossible.
Even as they debated their next move, life in the outpost continued on Thursday and Friday as residents went to work and children left for school.
On Thursday evening, residents gathered for a sheva brachot meal for a newly wed couple in the outpost, Chanan and Etel Cohen.
Their wedding was held on Monday night, on the eve of a court hearing on Migron. Unsure of what would happen, they had prepared a small caravan home to live in.
On Thursday evening, the Cohens and their guests attended a communal meeting, setting up folding chairs on the grass outside their homes as they listened to their parents and the Migron rabbi discuss the Torah and offer them blessings.
When most of the guests had left, in a moment of hope and faith, Chanan and Etel hung a small mezuza on the doorpost of their home.