Dror Etkes . Border Control /The last legal loophole

Akiva Eldar. Haaretz. 25/07/07. "The reports we issued, as harsh and precise as they may be, did not prompt the state to act. I want to force the state to prepare the settlements and the outposts to pay the price, or to evacuate them and pay a different kind of price. Instead of fighting over a comprehensive change in policy, which will never happen, I'll sue the state over the many cases in which it is breaking the same rules which it claims to obey. I want to take this matter to its bitter end: You say that you're a state with the rule of law, then explain to the court why you are building settlements and outposts on so-and-so's land. I hope that in so doing we'll put the state in the situation it least wants to be in: to have to act to confront the settlers. It's not important how long they've been there. No court can reject a petition relating to the takeover of private land without an occupancy order or an administrative order. Despite the mass of concrete and steel surrounding them and despite the generous assistance they get from the establishment, the settlers know that they are living on borrowed time. Suddenly all of the concrete and steel and support from the establishment hang on a thread. That's why they have to bring the craziest youths to protect every container at all costs. This is the behavior of a society whose entire existence is based on the settlement effort. When this endeavor is in danger, their world collapses. Otherwise it's impossible to have 3,000 people fighting over nine houses. It shows the fragility of the enterprise". Etkes is letting the settlers know that he, too, is willing to risk his life to promote his worldview. To him, dealing with the settlements is a battle against a political culture that is both anti-civil and anti-equality. The future of the state, in his view, depends on whether the rabbis of the Yesha Council of Settlements in Judea and Samaria and the thugs on the hilltops will be compelled to obey the government's decisions or whether they will become the ones to dictate them.

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