Land Give Away and Housing Deeply Divides Israel WR15-211

Above, Beit El settlers clash with police.

Friends, first, I am pleased to announce that over 223,000 people have watched my "Watchman Report" on YouTube. I will return to YouTube broadcasting when I recover from my leg surgery. Your financial support is needed for the Watchman Report ministry. 

Friends, here we go again. We went through this when Ariel Sharon gave away Israel’s land in Gaza. The Lord struck down Sharon and he remained in a coma for 8 years before he died. The Lord will strike down anyone or any nation that gives His land away, that includes Obama and the United States.

We are clearly seeing the Israeli people and U.S. Jews are divided, just as the German Jews were divided about Hitler and most Jews waited too long to get out of Germany.

Israel is divided between the leftists who want to sell out Israel (land for peace) and the right wing Zionists. Let me make it very clear to my Jewish friends. God will not allow His land to be divided. It is not for Jews or Gentiles to give away God’s promised land. 

When the bulldozers began tearing down the Draynoff houses in Beit El (meaning House of God in Hebrew), following a High Court order, a consultation was held at the Prime Minister's Office in which the immediate construction of 300 housing units in Beit El was approved.

In addition, 91 housing units in Jerusalem will be marketed, and planning will begin for 24 homes in Pisgat Ze'ev, 300 homes in Ramot, 70 homes in Gilo, and 19 units at Har Homa.

Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett congratulated the prime minister on the decision, which he called “quick, right and Zionistic.”

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon opposed the decision to build more homes.

MK Moti Yogev of the party said the Beit El incident might end the coalition. it appears that it was a threat by party chairman Naftali Bennett to do so that brought Netanyahu to declare the construction of 300 homes. .

There has been tension growing in the party, with supporters from Beit El facing off against Bennett to press him to do something about the demolition, to which he told them to protest to Likud. The Tekuma faction of Jewish Home has indicated it may take action if the party does not.

MKs from both the government and opposition have lined up to slam Jewish Home lawmaker Motti Yogev, for comments he made earlier Wednesday calling for the Israeli Supreme Court building to be bulldozed.

Yogev was responding to the demolition this morning of two residential buildings in the Jewish town of Bet El in Samaria, north of Jerusalem, in what activists and local community leaders say was a needless, ideologically-driven order by the Supreme Court.

"Despite the valid zoning plan and the construction permit, the High Court ruled unjustly, in a way befitting charlatans,” an angry Yogev fired.

"A D9 [bulldozer] shovel should be used against the High Court,” he added, in a statement bound to arouse howls of anger in the Left. “We, as a legislative system, will make sure to rein in the legalistic rule in this country, and the tail that wags the dog.”

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett sought to distance himself from the remarks, telling Israel Radio Yogev should not have made the remark, and saying he had reprimanded the MK in a private conversation.

But other MKs responded far more furiously to the remarks, including Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud).

"Comments like those of MK Yogev have no place and I condemn them," Erdan said, claiming they amounted to incitement to violence.

"There are people who could interpret them as legitimization of violence towards judges or police," he added.

Calling on other MKs to similarly condemn Yogev's comments, Erdan warned that disrespecting the courts could lead to the breakdown of the rule of law and "anarchy."

MK Merav Michaeli, a senior MK in the left-wing Zionist Union party, went further still in her condemnation of the remarks, calling on Yogev to be dismissed as an MK and put on trial.

"Motti Yogev is not fitting to be a public elected official in Israel," she said. "Someone who calls to raze the Supreme Court with bulldozers needs to be suspended immediately from all his positions and stand trial for his serious incitement."

MK Issawi Frej of the far-left Meretz party also rushed to condemn Yogev.

"MK Motti Yogev reveals the true face of the Jewish Home party, as a party that wants to destroy not only the Supreme Court, but also democracy in Israel," he charged. 

Frej challenged Jewish Home's leader, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, to fire Yogev, "otherwise it will be understood that Yogev's position is the position of the Jewish Home."

Fellow far-left MK Michal Rozin went further still, calling on the Attorney General to open criminal charges against Yogev.

Rozin accused Yogev of "sedition" against the state with his comments, which she said "endanger the democratic character of the State of Israel.

Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich was indignant Wednesday after the High Court ordered the demolition of the Draynoff homes in Beit El, even though their zoning plan had already been approved. The homes were demolished soon afterward.

Smotrich said that he sees the decision as “delusional” and called it “another nail in the burial coffin of an arrogant Supreme Court that does not know its place. Woe to the court that has such judges/destroyers,” he added. "The president of the Supreme Court insists on forcibly tearing the thin thread between the court and the political system and forcing the Knesset to place the court in its proper place through legislation,” he warned. Before the demolition, Smotrich called on the prime minister not to carry out the order, which he said was illegal. "A democratic state cannot accept a situation in which the prime minister and the entire political system seeks to advance a certain policy, which is 100% within its authority, and the court prevents it from doing so because of considerations of honor, ego or control. This verdict has nothing to do with justice and law. Once the structures have been approved, there is no legal problem in not destroying them.”

Smotrich predicted that the day will be remembered as one on which “a healthy process began, of bringing back the power to the nation and its elected officials and of freeing the state from the radical dictatorship of the High Court.” 

Below, the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El.