BICOM

Last night the Israeli Government held a jubilee celebration to mark 50 years of the settlement movement in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

The state ceremony was held in the Etzion bloc, which in previous negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians was proposed as one of the settlement blocs that would become sovereign Israeli territory in a final-status agreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended the event and told the 3,000 strong crowd that “in the amazing defensive war 50 years ago, we returned to the Etzion Bloc, the Old City of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights. I say we returned, meaning we came home to our patrimony”.

Netanyahu vowed that the Jewish communities in the territories will never be uprooted. “Settlement is important to you in the same way that it is important to me, so I say very clearly: There will be no further uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel. We will uproot neither Jews nor Arabs,” said the Prime Minister.

Netanyahu was joined at the ceremony by Government ministers from the Likud and Jewish Home party, as well as Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein. The only member of the opposition present was Haim Jelin MK (Yesh Atid), who said he was there to show “solidarity with the citizens of Israel who settled in the blocs, which are an inseparable part of the State of Israel”. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who is personally a strong supporter of the settler movement, did not attend the event.

The build-up to the ceremony was marred by controversy when Supreme Court Chief Justice Miriam Naor declined to send a representative to the ceremony saying “the event was about a controversial subject” and therefore “without taking a position … it was decided that the judicial branch should not attend”.

In response, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked from the Jewish Home party said: “By your very announcement, you unravelled the bipartisan nature of an official ceremony that the Government had decided to hold, and you created a mistaken appearance that the event was of a political nature.”

Leader of the Zionist Union, Avi Gabbay, expressed similar concern that the event had become overtly politicised by a hard-line right wing agenda.