When Ariel Sharon and later Benjamin Netanyahu evacuated Homesh, it reflected a realization of the need to separate from the Palestinians in order to avoid falling into the trap of a bloody binational reality and forfeiting Israel’s Jewish majority. Allowing reckless extremists to resettle in the place accelerates processes leading to the Lebanonization of Israel.
At first glance, Homesh is but a minor and fleeting episode in Jewish history. A closer inspection shows otherwise. At a time when there no longer is a significant Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (Civil Administration and Central Bureau of Statistics data), resettling Homesh reflects the vision of the most extreme messianic Right of a binational state between the river and the sea.
By seeking to establish a contiguous Jewish settlement in the heartland of Palestinian life on the West Bank, they are determined to prevent any possibility of separation between the two peoples. This will leave future Israeli governments with but two equally calamitous choices, each spelling the end of the Zionist enterprise: either grant Palestinians full and equal civil rights, thereby forfeiting the Jewish character of Israel or deny them rights and usher in an apartheid-like reality, thereby forfeiting Israeli democracy.
Why does Homesh threaten Israeli security?
In allowing this to happen, we surrender both the shaping of Israel’s future and its security to an extreme, anti-Zionist, messianic Right. By virtue of its location, Homesh and settlements like it literally undermines national security.
Located in the heart of a densely populated Palestinian area, they pin down elite Israeli forces required for their defense, thus undermining the preparedness of the IDF in the face of growing threats on multiple fronts. Furthermore, the daily friction with surrounding Palestinians serves as an additional incentive for terrorist violence, both in the territories and within Israel proper.
Extremist settlers act as if the land is more sacred than human life. In so doing they jeopardize the lives of their women and children as well as of all Israelis, wherever in the country they may live.
The resettlement of Homesh undermines national security in other ways, as well. Violating commitments undertaken by Israeli Prime Ministers – that of the late Ariel Sharon to United States president George Bush and that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Biden administration – triggered emphatic US protests, underscoring the cumulative damage to our strategic relations with the US, a main pillar of Israel’s security.
Another victim of the reckless move of re-settling Homesh is the settlement enterprise itself. Some 80% of West Bank settlers reside in the major settlement blocs, which are backed by a broad public consensus. The isolated, lawless settlements where brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians originate cast a shadow of viciousness over all West Bank settlers.
If, therefore, settlement in Homesh is renewed in violation of the law, government decisions, national security needs and commitments to the US, it would be another milestone in the process of undoing the Zionist vision carried out by people who claim to speak in the name of Zionism itself.
Wildcat settlements on the West Bank are the appalling result of government-sanctioned anarchy. Settlement in heavily populated Palestinian areas contradicts Zionist values and undermines the key achievement of well over 100 years of Zionist settlement and the establishment of a solid Jewish majority in Israel. Although these settlements constitute a tiny minority in the midst of an overwhelming Palestinian majority, should this trend not be reversed, it threatens to achieve its strategic objective of preventing the separation of the two peoples. In so doing, it will inflict a critical blow to our Jewish majority.
A reality of a single Jewish-Palestinian state – even if a slim Jewish majority proves sustainable, but certainly should demographic trends make it disappear – is opposed by most Israelis, including many who voted for the current, governing coalition.
It is incumbent on the Israeli public to speak out against this development and it is the duty of the government to stop this process before we are condemned to an ever-conflicted reality that jeopardizes the Zionist vision.
The writer is a member of Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS). He served as a deputy director of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).