Dozens of opinion shapers took part in the Sovereignty Movement’s special geo-political tour to the Jordan Valley, where they were exposed to the challenges to governance and sovereignty in dealing with Arab agricultural terror, battles over land, but also witnessed the residents’ pioneering spirit.
The Sovereignty Movement’s series of “Premium” tours for public opinion shapers and public figures continued with a tour that the movement held for dozens of participants in the Jordan Valley, led by former security officer Col. (res.) Yohai Ben Yishai. People from the security establishment along with people from the settlement movement in the Jordan Valley addressed the participants, as well as head of YESHA Council and Head of Jordan Valley Council David Elhayani, and during the meeting with him, the discussion spilled over into political matters due to the YESHA Council’s struggle with the government.
Ben Yishai reviewed the civil and security-related struggles entailed by the Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, first and foremost he expanded on the essentialness of the Valley as the Israel’s eastern defensive wall, which provides strategic depth, airspace for the Air Force and room to transport military forces from the south to the north. Ben Yishai further elaborated on the security importance of the settlement enterprise as an organic part of the military missions involved in stand-by squads, joining forces, etc.
As part of his remarks, he noted the importance of IDF firing ranges and training bases as an integral part of the struggle to hold territory in a huge area where Israeli control is weak and there is minimal police presence. From the understanding that smuggling through the Jordanian border constitutes an infrastructure for continuous, severe, hostile terror activity there is ongoing, close contact with the Jordanian army.
In contrast, Ben Yishai spoke at length about the well-orchestrated trend by the PA to take over territory in Area C in general and the Jordan Valley in particular. This is done to implement the plan by Salam Fiyyad to establish a Palestinian state in the area. According to him, while the media focuses on Khan al Ahmar, the area is full of much larger “Khan al Ahmars” which are intended to create territorial contiguity between Jericho and the Arab towns in the Jordan Valley and key towns of the PA on the mountain ridge, such as Nablus, Ramallah, etc. To encourage the trend of Arab presence in the Jordan Valley, the PA holds many tours in key sites in the Valley with the main message being the exclusive Arab presence in the area.
Faced with Israeli inaction, unclear statements by the Civil Administration and the absence of a legal mandate to enforce the laws of the Jordan Valley Council, it is people from the PA who determine fats on the ground, expand illegal building that becomes villages and towns, suffocating major transportation routes and taking over land around Jewish settlements.
The security officer for Megilot Regional Council, Dror Sinai, met the participants of the tour and told them of his personal experiences both as an agriculturalist who grows date palms and as a security person, about coping with the phenomenon of agricultural crime as well as the history of date palm farming in the Jordan Valley.
Sinai spoke about the repetitive waves of Arab theft, about agricultural equipment, including forklifts, etc., that are stolen, about young date palms that are also stolen, about storehouses that are emptied and about the deceptive method of agricultural thieves among the Arab villages and Bedouins in the area. These can “bleed” a certain place and not steal from there for two years, but one day, under the cover of winter weather, raid the area and within hours, steal huge amounts of equipment and fruit.
He also emphasized the importance of the contribution of the civil forces who volunteer to support the farmers, together with drone technology that has become an integral part of the battle. However, Sinai notes the weakness with which the Israeli legal system relates to agriculture terror as it did when a thief who stole agricultural equipment who was captured after he stole a tool worth more than thirty thousand shekels, caused additional damage of about three thousand shekels and led to a costly cessation of work for a number of days. He was fined 3000 shekels and 2000 shekels expenses for the trial. However, according to him, the relevant bodies in the Agricultural and Defense Ministries are well aware of the problem, understand the importance of agricultural holdings and do things to support the farmers.
To the remarks by Dror Sinai, Col. (res.) Ben Yishai added his view as a senior officer, that strong agriculture is necessary as a guarantor for strong towns, which are themselves necessary as a basis for Israeli control and sovereignty. However, his view is not at all necessarily that of the security officers, since a “security officer” of the Valley is not evaluated by how well he prevents theft, but by how well terror is thwarted”, and the connection between the two is not always clear to the military system.
The participants of the tour visited the compound of the Jordan Valley Research and Development (R & D) Center, where Ziva, a senior researcher and a 43-year resident of the town of Tomer, presented to them the goals of R & D since its establishment by newcomers to the Jordan Valley with no agricultural background at all, who needed training and guidance that would lead to the proper yield.
To do this, in-depth research was done on weather, the situation in various parts of the Valley, which have areas with an altitude of 400 meters below sea level as well as 300 meters above sea level, variations which are very significant for agriculture.
As part of her remarks, she presented the impressive achievements that agriculture in the Jordan Valley have reached, which turned farming of Majhoul dates in the Valley into an almost unrivaled world leader. She also spoke in detail about the vineyards for table grapes, one of the most profitable crops in the Valley, centers for spice farming, vegetables and the beginning of mango farming, figs, citrus fruit and lichee nuts. She also noted the ornamental plants that are grown in the Jordan Valley, mainly for the local market.
The R & D Center is intended to solve problems of existing crops, proper treatment, proper thinning, quality and quantity of water, etc. As well as adapting new crops to different areas of the Valley”, she said, and spoke of the plan to establish an R & D visitors’ center along with the hothouses and plots of ground and groves under R & D management.
She also spoke about coping with BDS organizations that are acting to boycott Israeli produce in world markets and she related to the plight of farmers in light of the reform that is being planned and promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture.
At the Jordan Valley security compound, the participants of the tour met with Hadas, the council’s security officer, a 33 year old mother of 4, who described the uniqueness of the compound, which includes all emergency services such as the MDA, fire extinguishing services, police and a volunteer initiative that she established as part of the struggle with the phenomenon of Arab theft in the council’s towns.
Many events come under the responsibility of the security officer, starting with fires and traffic accidents, through terror and criminal events, to snake bites in a kindergarten. All of these and more come under one umbrella and are dealt with by the situation room, where residents of the Valley also participate, who are familiar with the various towns and their uniqueness.
Along with the challenges, Hadas also described the change that has taken place in the Jordan Valley recently with the demographic growth, plots that have been opened for returning children of the towns. In order to reinforce the security, the IDF established two dedicated battalions and there is an understanding of the importance of the isolated farms to protect the firing zones and prevent an Arab takeover of Area C. It is in this spirit, there is cooperation between various civil and security elements.
Cooperation between the military and the farmers in the Jordan Valley expresses the joint significance of the two arms, in the practical sphere as well, when entry to agricultural enclaves is done with military oversight and in certain agricultural areas, entry by the farmer is allowed only after a military check.
Hadas tells of encounters with Palestinian police, who sometimes overstep their authority and try to take part in dealing with various events such as traffic accidents, but she feels it is clear that “It must be managed by Israeli authorities” and therefore, the PA officers are removed from the site.
Ben, a member of the recently established team for Area C, spoke extensively about coping with the Salam Fiyyad plan to illegally take over parts of Area C. With maps of the Valley behind him, he presented the way that roads are made by the PA in order to connect Arab villages to each other in order that they not be left as isolated islands. This is also the way that Arab strangulation belts are created around the Jewish towns and how more and more Jewish agricultural land is taken over, by taking advantage of the IDF soldiers’ lack of familiarity with the law.
According to him, the PA views as a special goal, the takeover of the Jordan Valley because it is a huge area where there is a relatively small Arab presence. To accomplish this, the PA invests in planting millions of trees in the Valley, understanding that it is more difficult to enforce the law vis-à-vis planting, versus building.
The PA is also careful to establish public buildings in strategic spaces, “They know that it will be much more difficult for us to destroy a kindergarten or school, so they build them within a day, especially at night and you can see signage of the European Union and the "government of Palestine”.
He also spoke of how the Palestinians take advantage of the confused system of laws in Judea and Samaria, since Ottoman law, British law, Jordanian law and Israeli law are all combined with each other. The PA has mapped the area, which Israel has not done, and it sells land as if it is the PA’s to sell. Against the acquisition of land such as this, facts must be presented immediately, before it will be determined by some facts on the ground and this task as well is assigned to Ben’s team, who tells of how Arabs are building under the sheets of a tent, so that it is difficult to detect that there is a permanent, illegal building, and when the sheets of the tent are removed, there is a real building underneath.
The team that was established and is funded by the Ministry of Settlement, is supposed to help the Civil Administration enforce Israeli law, and for this purpose, its members learn Arabic, undergo legal training, operating drones and unique applications, etc.
The Meeting with David Elhayani, head of Jordan Valley Council and YESHA Council, concluded the tour. Along with a description of the situation with which the residents of the Valley contend, he had harsh criticism for the conduct of Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who is conducting a state within a state, as he puts it, ignoring political commitments and carrying out a de facto building freeze in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, while continually ignoring the upswing in Arab building in Area C.
Elhayani mentioned the ongoing delay in convening the Supreme Planning Council and commented that even if it had met, quite a few building plans that are already in the process of approval have been frozen removed from the agenda. He also noted the land survey that was done as a result of the Eviatar agreement, but the later phase, the phase of declaring state land, has not been done. This, besides meeting with the head of the PA and with the King of Jordan along with the discourse of “settlement violence”. In his words, “The Defense Minister is close to the position of the Democratic Party in the U.S. and delays the Prime Minister’s request to convene the Supreme Planning Council. Benny Gantz conducts an aggressive policy against the Jews and gives free rein to the Palestinians”.
As someone who supported the establishment of the government in its present form, and now finds the council that he heads calling for the overthrow of the government, Elhayani says that he is loyal and committed to the settlement enterprise and not to the party. “If we do not fight, we lose the moral high ground vis-à-vis our children, vis-à-vis the future and vis-s-vis history”. On his support for establishing the government, he says that the government had signs of a good government, as he defined it, “a government in which RAAM, Meretz, Avoda, Yesh Atid and Kahol-Lavan would adopt the foundational lines of the Likud, according to the principle that what was in the previous government is what it will be”, but actually, as was said above, the Defense Minister pursues a totally different policy.
In this context, Elhayani justifies the decision to cancel the meeting with the Defense Minister. It is not reasonable, in his opinion, for the Defense Minister to come to the meeting with an open mind when that morning, he demolished Jewish buildings in two outposts. “We set out in a campaign against the government because the government has collective responsibility for the government within a government that Gantz is leading”.
However, in Elhayani’s opinion, the desire of certain elements in the government to survive will provide it with stability until the end of its term.
Regarding the reality of life in the Jordan Valley, Elhayani described the spread of Palestinian building, and in at least one case, a warning resulted in the Civil Administration’s attempt to legalize the building. He also described the phenomenon of the theft of water, that has become common in the Valley, with the Israeli water carrier becoming a continual source of theft of millions of cubic meters of water along with illegal drilling, which causes severe harm to the eastern aquifer.
In answer to the question of what goal he has for the council that he heads, Elhayani states that it is to double the number of residents in the near future and speaks of the significant momentum in population growth in recent years with the return of the children and quick acquisition of most plots that have been approved for the purpose.
In his words, “The potential for growth depends on the policy of the government, as it was during the period of Sharon regarding the hilltops in the Galilee”. Elhayani spoke of the proposal to establish a haredi city in the Valley but the answer he received was to pass responsibility for such a huge project from the state to him, as head of a regional authority. “Without a government policy, that will encompass all of the data and prior investigations, it will not happen. A new city means improving the roads, an electricity grid, improving the water infrastructure, etc. All of this requires a totally different way of thinking.
Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, the co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement, which leads and is the initiator of the tour, as well as all of the sovereignty tours that are being held during this period, summarize the tour noting that “while we indeed were witness to the complex challenge of settlement in the Jordan Valley, contending with agricultural terror, Arab takeover of land and lack of governance, we also saw a population that clings to the Land of the homeland, willing to sacrifice and aspiring to develop. The residents of the Jordan Valley understand well their historic role in fortifying the State of Israel’s eastern defensive wall and they do it with admirable faith and resolve“.
“The pioneering spirit of the Jews, who understand well that the struggle for Israel’s existence and sovereignty is far from over, it is the resolute spirit that is so necessary today for the entire People of Israel and especially for the political leadership. The government and its leader must observe the residents of the Valley and become filled with a strong spirit of Zionism in deed and in spirit, and as to all the problems we encountered on the tour- the plan that will be able to deal with all these challenges is the application of Sovereignty- conclude the two women”.