One clause in the annex to the coalition agreement signed with the religious Zionist faction provides a historic opportunity to change the direction of the State of Israel.
This is a section dealing with the powers of the new minister who will be appointed within the Ministry of Defense.
The publication of the agreement drew a dramatic attack this week from senior officials in the former security establishment.
An attack that consists of a mask of lies, distortions and mistakes, but at the base of which is a worldview.
And this reveals the orientation of the Israeli government system, including the one in uniform, which is led by ideas opposite to the view of the majority of the public and its elected representatives.
This was also the case during all of Netanyahu's years as Prime Minister, only now, as a result of an extraordinary coincidence, there is a chance of a historical change of direction.
For the first time: equality
The Silof attack explodes with the claim that the agreement with Smotrich will make the Jews of Yosh to have special rights. But the truth is the opposite, because the agreement as a whole will give the Jews of Yosh, for the first time since 1967, equal rights.
To this day, all duties are imposed on them, but they lack rights in key areas of their lives.
While the Arabs of Yosh buy and build and spread out almost without interruption, the Jews are suffocated by the authorities. To close a balcony in Beit El or develop a neighborhood in the municipal territory of Kiryat Arba, you need the approval of the Minister of Defense because he is the boss of the sovereign of Yosh - General of the Central Command.
Overall, the agreement will give the Jews of Yosh equal rights. Smotrich, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The discrimination stems from the hybridization that the State of Israel has instituted since the Six Days, between the military government and the civilian affairs it was entrusted with.
And this is precisely the anomaly that the new agreement seeks to crack - to transfer the control of civilian affairs from the hands of those wearing the uniform to civilian hands, which reflect the views of the majority of the public.
I am studying legal battles, in matters where the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister have taken advantage of the undemocratic power given to them in the Yash to prevent the natural development of the settlement. Because led by the "professional ranks" - the Minister of Defense usually blocks everything.
The annex that was signed is actually a technical tool, which gives the new minister in the Ministry of Defense powers to carry out a policy that still needs to be agreed upon.
But he rightly removes the Minister of Defense from responsibility for distinct civilian issues in the Yash, starting with planning and construction and ending with the purchase of real estate and its supervision.
By the way, the Civil Administration in the Palestinian Territories does not manage the lives of the Arabs. Most of them are controlled by the Palestinian Authority, with the exception of supervision on the ground in Area C. In general, the areas of occupation of the administration are far from the areas of expertise of the security establishment, and especially of the officers appointed to senior positions.
In the harsh criticisms that were voiced this week about the change in the civil administration, veterans of the security establishment starred.
For example - Dr. Ronit Levin-Shnur, a lecturer at Reichman University, whom I know well. She stood in front of me in the past, when I led legal battles to protect the basic property rights of Yosh Jews.
Levin did everything to deny these rights, even though she did not represent extreme left organizations but was an officer in uniform - a senior member of the Yosh legal advisory mechanism. The positions she led then on behalf of the State of Israel are the same as the ones she presents today - they characterize the extreme left and all its enemies They characterize Yosh's legal-military advice.
The lives of the Arabs are mainly controlled by the PA.
Abu Mazen, photo: Reuters
This week I heard Dr. Levin emphatically state baseless pseudo-legal assertions. For example, that international law prohibits the agreement between Netanyahu and Smotrich, that the State of Israel is an occupier in the West Bank and is only allowed to protect the Palestinians, and not to develop Jewish settlement.
This is a typical position of hostile jurists, which has never been accepted by the High Court of Justice - and many jurists believe exactly the opposite. After all, the Yosh territories cannot be considered occupied territory according to international law, because those who held them before us were never recognized as having the right to them.
And if any entity has the right to claim sovereignty over the Jewish people, according to the resolutions of the League of Nations and the UN Charter - it is only the State of Israel as the representative of the Jewish people.
Dr. Levin provides an example of a wide and serious syndrome, of senior uniformed wearers leading an illegitimate view that contradicts the position of the government and the majority of the public. Those who, while working in the civil service, do everything to block the development of settlement, using every possible pseudo-legal pretext. This tune The new agreement was intended to stop.
Another retired senior security official who enlisted in the attack is Major General (Res.) Amos Gilad.
His views illustrate the same syndrome at the top of the security establishment.
In an article in "Yediot Ahronoth", Gilad claimed that transferring powers to the Ministry of Defense is a security risk and de facto annexation, which will cause the PA to collapse and the transfer of forces to the military instead of the really important places.
Join the attack.
Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, photo: Dodo Greenspan
But the facts are completely the opposite.
I have followed the situation in Yosh as a reporter since the 1980s, and documented the reality that prevailed before the Oslo Accords. I saw how the establishment of the PA deteriorated our security and political situation. Until the first intifada, we held Yosh with minimal forces, and later crushed the intifada, until that in the early 1990s there were almost no weapons and no terrorism in the Yash. Senior officials in the security establishment strongly warned against concluding the agreement with Yasser Arafat, but Shimon Peres ordered them to "replace the diskette". Since the diskette was replaced, Amos Gilad and his ilk have been wearing virtual reality glasses - The reality of Oslo, which ignores the facts and makes them indulge in our bitterest enemy - the PLO.
Those who do not wear the glasses of the distortion of reality, notice that the Ramallah Authority is not a stabilizer - but the generator of terror and incitement.
Every time we tried to strengthen it - we were hit by stronger waves of terror.
See the current wave of terrorism by Fatah, which stems from the strengthening of Abu Mazen by Benny Gantz.
The new agreement does not give the minister in the Ministry of Defense powers against the Palestinian Authority, except for the preservation of the land in Area C, but if he promotes the collapse of the Authority - what good.
And let's not be intimidated with the management of the organizational and budgetary management. The Civil Administration before Oslo cared for the lives of the Arabs better than the Palestinian Authority, and the State of Israel only benefited financially from this management, as the left-wing organizations claimed at the time.
Horizon for a national decision
Still, there is a kernel of truth in the criticism.
It is indeed a procedure that will allow the Arab takeover of the land to be stopped, and will provide tools for the development of the settlement.
This is exactly the position of the majority of the Israeli public, much to the dismay of the retired officials, who refuse to accept the rules of the democratic game.
More than that: one more easy effort, and the strength of our presence in the Yash will decide the debate that has been going on here since the six days about the future of the territories. An imaginary debate, as the failures of Oslo and the disengagement proved, that has poisoned us ever since and prevents us from focusing on the important national tasks. This is how the new agreement marks A chance for a historical change of perception, which will also lead to a national decision.
were we wrong
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