A senior officer serving in the IDF Civil Administration was outed in an internal document leaked to the media, addressing her attitude and relationship with Yishuv Yitzhar, based on a KAN News report.
In the document leaked to KAN News, the officer is quoted wrote in an internal memo that, “The settlement of Yitzhar cannot be treated with a double standard. It is inconceivable that the most senior IDF officials seek to arrange and assist (the yishuv) in blatant disregard of the actions of the residents of the outposts, which include harming security forces.”
It should be noted that some of the Yitzhar residents clashed with the security forces as occurred last July, when stone-throwing rioters threw stones at border police forces, leaving a female officer injured. A year ago, they placed metallic spikes in the road and threw rocks at a military ambulance responding to treat a resident, a woman who dehydrated. On the other hand, residents of the community have at times reported and documented that security forces treat them with an unusually heavy hand.
Immediately, COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) Major-General Kamil Abu Rokon responded, “The Civil Administration is primarily responsible for maintaining security stability throughout Yehuda and Shomron while promoting the quality of life in the area. We will clarify that this is an internal document whose purpose is to reflect the situation and the security and civil sensitivity that exists in a specific area in the area to the Civil Administration”.
Yitzhar officials attacked the findings of the report and said that “after we were exposed to some of the allegations in the report, we conducted an investigation with the Samaria Brigade command, which clearly determined that these figures do not reflect the current reality. Yitzhar has experienced dozens of violent arson and terror attacks on the part of the nearby Arab villages in recent months, a few of which have been recorded by residents”.
The statement further stated that “the Yishuv leadership and its residents are in warm and excellent contact with IDF soldiers and commanders. Yitzhar is proud to provide an informal educational framework for youth from all over the country who have dropped out of the educational system and has succeeded in raising them in an honorable fashion, in contrast to the inaction of the responsible authorities. The Yishuv is devising an educational plan for the occasional failures that pop up from time to time.
“We are pleased with the cooperation with the IDF and the shared desire to solve problems in a fundamental manner. The distorted report and the proposal to punish 1500 residents and prevent them from providing basic services are inconsistent with the principles of democracy and prove that the Civil Administration is not a professional and objective body.”
The Shomron Regional Council claimed that the report seeks to stop permits for the development of infrastructures in the community, including infrastructure for a kindergarten for the children of the community who have been waiting for five years. They also claimed that the report quoted events taken from reports of “extreme leftist organizations, and even from the Palestinian Authority.”
The head of the council, Yossi Dagan, responded to the findings and said that “this is the brazenness of a Civil Administration official who thinks she is a Knesset member in Meretz, and officials in the Civil Administration are torpedoing the approval of security elements who could have prevented terrorist attacks in threatened communities.”
In his words, “This is an example of the bad Civil Administration of the past. I am calling on the head of the Civil Administration to remove the clerk from the report, who acts like a politician, and not as required. This report is false. The Yitzhar leadership is drawing the community in a positive direction, and this report has nothing but lies.”
Dagan added that “this is a complete loss of control by the Civil Administration, at a time when there are murderers with the blood of Israelis are on their hands, the Civil Administration refrains from punishing the source of terror, explaining doing so represents collective punishment, and now they want to create collective punishment for the Jews. The Civil Administration, and the head of the Civil Administration and the deputy defense minister should call this clerk to a pre-dismissal hearing.”
MK (Bayit Yehudi) Bezalel Smotrich said that “this document reflects a political agenda hostile to the settlement and the settlers, which unfortunately is expanding in this unnecessary body. However, no less than that, it reflects a double standard: it is the same civilian director who for years has pushed, in contrast to a thousand different distinctions, a policy of separation between those involved in terrorism and the entire Arab population. Now he suddenly remembered to apply collective punishment against the settlers”.
“For years now, the residents of Yehuda and Shomron, who are equal citizens who serve in the IDF and in reserves and pay taxes, are not entitled to equal rights and receive inferior service from the Civil Administration instead of receiving optimal service from government ministries like all citizens of Israel,” Smotrich added.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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One Response
What do you think are the odds that this person (and most of the rest of the Civil Administration) comes from one of the ruling elite families? This is why they keep the draft. The IDF is bloated with militarily useless people so that safe units like the Civil Administration can exist. There is absolutely no reason for the military to be administrating anything. There job is to fight wars and kill our enemies. I wonder how many Masters and Doctorate degrees (paid for by the public) will come out of this unit and how many of them will retire (at age 45) with life time pensions larger than the average Israeli’s salary? They will then be plugged into the system at senior level jobs and the elite will continue their control of the country.