After a seemingly endless number of legal hearings and debates among the highest-ranking politicians, as well as a public debate complete with pressure and threats from the interested parties, the Migron affair is due to come to an end this week.
The High Court of Justice ruling on whether 17 families living on the outpost will be allowed to stay, because they say they purchased their land legally, is scheduled for 10 A.M. Tuesday morning, the day of the planned evacuation. It is expected to halt the extended frenzy surrounding a handful of infiltrators who made their own law.
Over the past few weeks, ministers and top-level security officials have been making an effort to convince the settlers to do what is taken for granted in a well-functioning society: Honor the High Court injunction compelling the outpost's other 33 families to evacuate and the cabinet resolution to uphold the court ruling.
The lawbreakers' path away from the land they stole from their Palestinian neighbors is paved with extensive public funds. The state is paying NIS 33 million - NIS 660,000 per family - to build an interim site where they can live. The Migron evacuees will pay a generously subsidized amount of no more than NIS 11 per meter for the mobile homes. One can hope that this excessive benefit will not be granted to residents who moved into the outpost after the High Court had already ordered its evacuation.
Despite the beneficent compensation offered to the infiltrators, some of their leaders have been threatening to forcibly oppose the security forces who will be enforcing the injunction. The groups of young criminals known as the "hilltop youth" are threatening to once again take out their anger on the residents of nearby Palestinian villages. The police must get tough with them, while using as little violence as possible. The extensive publicity the outpost has received has turned it into a test case for the rule of law and Israeli justice in the occupied territories.
Unfortunately, the evacuation of Migron will not be able to serve as a test case for the government's policy on peace or settlements. For 13 years, successive Israeli governments have repeatedly helped trespassers get themselves established in the outpost. Were it not for the High Court petition filed by Peace Now, the outpost would be flourishing. The evacuation of Migron (unless it gets deferred at the last minute ) is an exception that proves the rule of outposts gone wild, which continue to exist on the backs of others, undisturbed.
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