The Palestinian owners of the land on which the settlement of Homesh was built waited 35 years to return to their property in Samaria. The settlement was vacated eight years ago as part of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria known as the disengagement plan. But it was only two weeks ago, on the Sept. 16 conclusion of a lengthy legal battle conducted with the help of the “Yesh Din” human rights organization, that the legal owners were allowed to go back.
On arrival at the site this week, a few started tilling the land in a symbolic move. Others planted trees. Three generations of Palestinians — for the young ones, it was their first time there — broke out in dancing and singing on the land expropriated from them in 1978 under a seizure order issued by the civil administration. The order was explained as a defensive necessity, but instead of a military base or outpost, a settlement was built on the site.
Israel’s authorities claimed at the time that settlement helped state security. That was the concept behind the establishment of additional settlements in the West Bank, such as Elon Moreh.
The first settlements in the territories were not motivated pnly by ideology. They were designed also to populate strategic locations. Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin promised in those years that there “will be many Elon Morehs,” and he was right. Homesh is just one example of land seized ostensibly to help the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) defend Israel from strategic locations in the territories.
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