According to the Trump plan for an eventual Palestinian state alongside Israel, 15 Jewish locales in Judea and Samaria would remain as enclaves: Hermesh, Mevo Dotan, Elon Moreh, Itamar, Brachah, Yitzhar, Ateret, Ma’ale Amos, Miz, Carmei Tzur, Telem, Adora, Negohot, Bet Haggai and Othniel.
”Deal of the Century” – Photoshop, own work.
According to the new US “peace plan”, these [15] Jewish communities [marked with spots on this archipelago map] will become “enclaves in the Palestinian State”.
These towns are also the home of the most brave of Israeli Jews. Those who have some familiarity with Judea and Samaria know that, the more isolated you go to live, the more you have to be brave. And the more isolated these communities are, the more essential for Israel’s security and memory they become.
There live the Jews who were ready to risk everything, home, life, children, sleep. They live far off the safety tracks, away from the fence, away from the blocs, away from the busy streets. Every time they get into a car, they take risks. They are the home of 13,000 Jews.
The Israeli army during the Second Intifada, or “Oslo War”, created a “SSZ”, a special security area of four hundred meters around the settlements most at risk of terror attacks. The first to obtain it were Mevo Dotan and Hermesh lying in a deadly triangle including Jenin, Tulkarem and Nablus.
Mevo Dotan today is the nothern and most isolated Jewish town in Samaria. Going there is a long trip in a no man’s land. You live civilization far back beyond the 1967 border.
Everybody knows that if you forfeit these small, isolated Jewish towns outside the largest of the bourgeoise blocs, the whole of Judea and Samaria will be lost. Eretz Israel will be in danger. Palestinian Arabs with weapons will be free to circulate in areas 3-5 kilometers from Rosh Ha’Ayin, Shoham, and Petach Tikvah, from Modiin, Afula, Efrat and Jerusalem.
These Jewish enclaves are like the “tower and stockade” kibbutzim established from 1936 to 1938 in isolated regions far from other Jewish settlements. Ein Gev, the first modern Jewish settlement on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, could be reached only by sea for several years.
These small communities keep terrorists from taking over the area and serve as buffer zones for the larger Israeli cities. Without many of these settlements, Israel’s strategic space would shrink to Kalkilya.
Only passionately convinced people would visit this Jewish towns. […]. And I warn Israel: don’t freeze and abandon these communities! These are not “enclaves”, but the heart of Eretz Yisrael.
Excerpts from an article written by Giulio Meotti for Arutz Sheva, Israel.
Header: Friends of the Fogel family, who were stabbed to death in the settlement of Itamar in 2011, embrace after the murders.