http://www.maariv.co.il/news/israel/Article-616236
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ביום שלאחר ההצבעה במרכז הליכוד, שבה הוחלט פה אחד בעד החלת ריבונות "על כל מרחבי ההתיישבות המשוחררים ביהודה ושומרון", יהודית קצובר ונדיה מטר חוגגות את ההישג. "מה שהיה הכי מרגש זה שלא הייתה בוועידה ציניות כלל", מספרת מטר. "פגשנו אנשים שכבר שנים לא באו לוועידות ליכוד, ופתאום הם יצאו מהבית, מכל הארץ, רק בשביל להצביע על העניין הזה. אומנם זה קרה באיחור של 50 שנה, אבל זה צעד ענק. הקרדיט לצעד הזה הוא לנתן אנגלסמן, שבח וייס ושי מרלינג, אנשי ארץ ישראל בליכוד, שהרימו את הכפפה, ובעבודת נמלים אספו 900 חתימות וכינסו את הוועידה".
--------------------------------------------------- תיקון לכתבה: חשוב לנו להבהיר שבפסקה על מועצת יש"ע חסר המשפט שמועצת יש"ע הצטרפה לקמפיין הריבונות והובילה את קמפיין "מעלה אדומים תחילה" וכן שותפה במחקרים על הריבונות. יהודית קצובר ונדיה מטר Maariv Newspaper: Marking out the Territory: The Women behind the Initiative to Annex Judea and Samaria Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar are used to the Right perceiving them as delusional, but with the vote in Likud Central, they now see their efforts of many years bearing fruit: "It was a breakthrough" Karni Eldad, Maariv January 2, 2018 http://www.maariv.co.il/news/israel/Article-616236 Translated into English by Sally Zahav The day after the vote in Likud Central Committee, where there was a unanimous resolution in favor of the application of sovereignty "over all the liberated areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria", Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar are celebrating this achievement. "The most moving thing was that there was no cynicism at all in the Committee", Matar says. "We met people that had not come to the Likud Central Committee for years, but this time they left their homes, all over the country, just to vote on this matter. It's true that it took 50 years, but this is a huge step. Natan Englesman, Shevah Weiss and Shai Merling and the Land of Israel people in the Likud deserve the credit for this step; working methodically and tenaciously, they collected 900 signatures and brought the Committee to a meeting". "Last Sunday was a breakthrough at Likud Central", Katsover adds. "It was extraordinarily moving. We saw how people simply love the Land of Israel. We saw that deep down, people want to connect with the ideal". For years, Katsover (70), a resident of Hevron, Director of the College of Education in Kiryat Arba, wife of Tzvi Katsover, mother of five and grandmother to 16, and Matar (51), resident of Efrat, mother of six and grandmother to two, have dedicated themselves to advancing the idea of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, as the heads of Women in Green. On Monday, as I spoke with them, they were on their way to the Cave of the Patriarch in hevron driving in Matar's battered Jeep. "We need to go thank our mothers and fathers", they said, half-jokingly, "to tell them that it's good they bought the Cave of the Patriarchs at full price, but they left us with a lot of work to do". The Rightwing movement Women in Green was founded by Michael and Ruth Matar in 1993, following the signing of the Oslo Accords, taking its name from their campaign against a return to the Green Line in the 90s, when its members wore green hats. The movement's activities over the years have included protest demonstrations against the Oslo Accords, the signing of a petition against the establishment of a Palestinian State and other events. During Operation Defensive Shield Women in Green's members defended the IDF soldiers against Machsom Watch. In 2010, Matar and Katsover established the Sovereignty Movement as an NGO (non-governmental organization) working toward the application of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Since 2013, the movement has been publishing the Sovereignty Journal, dealing with the issue of Israeli sovereignty in the territories of Judea and Samaria. The same excuses 1,500 members of the Likud Central Committee, who gathered on Sunday in Airport City, voted for a binding resolution of the party's support of the application of Israeli sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley. Almost all ministers of the Likud were present except for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the vote was taken with his knowledge. The Likud Central Committee calls on Likud officials to act toward allowing unconstrained building and to apply Israeli law and sovereignty over the communities of Judea and Samaria. While it is true that Likud Central cannot enforce the law, it serves as an ideological example among Likud members. The idea of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria began with the liberation of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, but got a strong boost in recent years under the aegis of Women in Green. If not for the activities of Matar and Katsover, it is almost certain that the vote that took place in Likud Central on Sunday would not have happened, or would have happened only years later. Katsover and Matar have long since become used to being considered "delusional", even by the mainstream Right. In 2005, when they saw that the struggle against the disengagement plan was not succeeding and that the communities and their residents were expelled, they made an essential change in their activities, which had included up until then, demonstrations and protests. They referred to maps and decided to stop the Palestinian encroachment to Area C, which was under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords, and began the battle for strategic points, both in the communities and with plantings. "We would plant, and the Palestinians would uproot them", says Katsover. "Until we finally won. And then my husband told us that we are 'trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon'. We understood that the struggle cannot be limited to specific points". From Katsover and Matar's point of view, sovereignty is necessary for the half million Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, who, according to them, have the obligations of Israeli law on one hand, but do not enjoy the rights, and even for the simplest of procedures they must apply to the Civil Administration, the thinly-manned military body that is responsible for the lives of the residents of Judea and Samaria. So, for example, they cannot own the land on which their houses are built, unless they buy it from a Palestinian, and every alteration requires the permission of a military person. Sovereignty, at least in Area C, will change this situation. According to Katsover and Matar, the residents crave normalcy. They say that one of the difficulties that the two women encountered during this struggle was the way the authorities related to the Jews in Judea and Samaria. "The Civil Administration and judicial system viewed us, the Jews in Judea and Samaria, as temporary residents, while they viewed the Palestinians as the proprietors, as the indigenous people", says Matar. "When we brought a tractor to a plot – the whole world was up in arms. When an Arab did it – it was natural to them. The authorities wondered why in the world they had to protect these Jews, although what these crazy women say is correct. We understood that we have to get to the root of the problem. We understood that if we apply sovereignty in the area – the problem will be solved", says Matar. They say that about 250 people came to Women in Green's first conference in Hevron in 2011, and "a few courageous speakers", as they defined it, including Tzipi Hotovely and Uri Ariel. "Everyone thought it was delusional", they claim. "Yehudit decided, and rightly so, that we first need to convince our own camp about the need for sovereignty", Matar says. "Until that time, the agenda was only for settlement and building. We felt that if there was no sovereignty, we would not be able to defend the communities. When we set out with the first conference, people from our own camp asked us: 'why are you doing this just now' and 'why rock the boat'. All the excuses that that the spies used when they came to tour the Land were still being used". More than twice as many supporters of the idea came to Women in Green's second conference a year later. Between the conferences, the two women held personal meetings with ministers, members of Knesset and other public figures, trying to inculcate the idea within them. For the third conference, they rented a huge hall and broadcast the speakers outside the hall, "and it still was not enough", says Katsover. "We understood that we were still emptying the ocean with a teaspoon. And then we decided to publish the Sovereignty Journal and distribute it in two hundred thousand copies in English and Hebrew". Katsover and Matar are also critical of their own camp, of the YESHA Council, who, they say, despite the evacuations of Migron, Ofrah and Emuna, still did not understand what had to be done. "A year ago we raised the subject in a meeting of the YESHA Council, says Katsover. "Meanwhile, there were evacuations that we did not manage to prevent. Since Gush Katif, we always respond in the same way. We didn't change our pattern of behavior; just lobbying and more lobbying, everyone made promises and nothing helped, and in the best case, they would keep their promises after a decade had passed. We have to explain that the Land is ours, and this must be enshrined in legislation". * "We are not the first ones to deal with sovereignty", adds Katsover. "Aryeh Eldad, Uri Elitzur, obm, Rav Beni Elon obm and Caroline Glick came before us. But we turned it into a campaign. We don't take the credit, only the credit for being persistent". Because of Hope Over the years, the Sovereignty magazine, created by Katsover and Matar, has interviewed members of Knesset, ministers and many public figures, and each had his own way of defining Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, which is the unilateral annexation of the territory, regardless of whether the Palestinians or the rest of the world agrees to it. Katsover and Matar are not indifferent to the matter of the Palestinians who live in Area C, who, are estimated to number in the tens of thousands. There are those who believe that they should be transferred to Area A or B; there are those who claim that they should be given the status of permanent residency, like the residents of eastern Jerusalem and there are those who want to give them full citizenship. "The Left keeps inflating the number of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria by another million. They say that the number has reached five million people", says Katsover. "Recently, there finally was clarification regarding the number of refugees in Lebanon, and it turns out that although they thought that they numbered about a half million people, there are only about 150 thousand. There is always a huge gap between what they say and the truth". "According to demographer Yoram Ettinger, there are about 1.6 million Palestinians in Judea and Samaria", adds Matar. "We are not ignoring this problem. We are for annexing the territory (Women in Green relates to the entire territory, including Areas A and B –K.E.); giving them rights of residency like the residents of Jerusalem have, but never national rights. As Tzvi Katsover, Yehudit's husband, says, it's not despair that drives their terror, but hope. The hope that they can take our Land from us. The application of Israeli law will uproot that hope. They can integrate themselves here as residents with the condition that they behave lawfully. There will not be a situation where they can slap a soldier or touch a soldier. This will not be". Matar complains about the supporters of "two states for two peoples". "Anyone who thinks that we can solve a demographic problem by establishing a state for them does not understand that masses of Palestinians will enter by way of the border with Jordan", she says. "This is the real threat to the Jewish majority west of the Jordan, not sovereignty. Nobody is saying this". Meanwhile, Katsover and Matar do not rest for a moment and are continually working to secure the committee's decision by legislation. At the same time, they discovered that there is no National Master Plan that includes Judea and Samaria, so they are working toward formulating such a plan with an expert from Ariel University. They intend to propose the plan to the relevant ministers. "The mountain thoroughfare should be the key thoroughfare of Israel and the mountain ridge should become an area with a Jewish majority", says Matar. "We are suffocating. Minister Yoav Galant also understands that we need to turn eastward from Gush Dan, and he is consolidating such a plan, but it is not enough for us – we need sovereignty over everything". ---------------------------------------------------------- Correction to the article: It is important for us to clarify that in the paragraph about the Yesha council is missing a sentence. It has to be added that the Yesha Council has joined the Sovereignty campaign and led the campaign for 'Sovereignty in Maaleh Adumim first' . The Yesha Council is also a partner in research done about Sovereignty. Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar |
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