Here is a picture taken in Elkana, located in the western part of the Samarian hills near the Green Line:

Google Street View car in the West Bank settlement of Elkana.

Does this mean that Google too believes that “facts on the ground” are irreversible? And will they be launching Street View for Palestinian towns, checkpoints etc.?

The IDF issued temporary eviction orders on Thursday to 12 Jewish residents of the West Bank accused of planning attacks against Palestinians and the IDF.  The eviction orders range from anywhere between three and nine months. It is not clear where these people will reside during their eviction period and whether they are permitted to be in other parts of the West Bank or if they must be on the other side of the Green Line.

No charges were brought against them but rather the military claims it has information that is sufficient for their expulsion. This is an administrative expulsion order – the same practice that is used against Palestinian in the West Bank, where no proof of evidence is necessary, and no trial is conducted.

Why are these suspects not undergoing the due process of a trial? As a citizen, am I supposed to be put at east by the fact that they are distanced from their homes by the military without the chance to defend themselves – only to simply return to their homes at some point? In this case, I must agree with the settlers’ legal representation:

Honenu, a NGO that provides right-wing activists and soldiers with legal representation, and which is aiding the expelled extremists, said that Israel “reached a new low in human rights in the West Bank.” “If there’s a case against these youths then an indictment should be submitted, not out of court measures taken without proof or evidence,” Honenus said, adding that action through warrants was a step “worthy of military regimes in totalitarian countries.”

Honenu’s statement in fact only substantiates what Israeli “leftists” have been saying for years: there are two distincts systems of law in the region between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.

In another related story, Israel Police told the government today it is having a hard time issuing indictments against law-breakers in the West Bank because they are unable to gather sufficient evidence “due to the location of the crimes.” As Haim Rahamim, head of the investigations and intelligence wing of the Judea and Samaria District in the West Bank told the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee:

Ten people were arrested, but they were not indicted so they were released,” said Rahamim. “We have a problem with gathering evidence due to the location of where the crimes are committed.

What does that mean, “due to the location?” Why is it hard to gather evidence in the West Bank? Israel’s entire system of logic relies on its ability to instill order and security in the occupied Palestinian territories.  It should be easier to gather evidence there than inside Israel proper. The report does not specify what the problem is with the location, which is also faulty journalism.

Either way, by specifying the location of the crimes as a problem, this appears to be open admission by a senior security official that the police is incapable of enforcing basic criminal law on settlers in the West Bank. And the expulsion could also just be Netanyahu’s way of showing that something is being done to crack down on extremist settlers in order to give the semblance of justice in a place that is so obviously bereft of it.

Israel Army Radio is a popular mainstream station in Israel listened to by people from across the political spectrum.  It is thus significant that it is now being directed to use the same terminology used by the settler movement when invoking the Biblical, divine notion of “Greater Israel” that is completely detached from reality, diplomacy and human rights.

Even Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon refers to the area as “the West Bank” in his famous “hasbara” (PR) video explaining why the land is in fact not occupied – but I am all for calling the area “Judea and Samaria.” Since Israel looks like a theocracy and acts like a theocracy, it might as well talk like one too.

Below is a video of Breaking the Silence volunteers walking around the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem handing out flyers and talking to Birthright participants, in an effort to get them interested and informed.

Ironically, the initiative by BTS responds to what MK Danny Danon, chairman of the Knesset Committee on Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, has recently demanded (Hebrew): that Birthright trips, which are partially funded by the State of Israel, should stop “boycotting Judea and Samaria” and begin taking their participants there, otherwise he threatened to cut their government funding. Indeed Birthright-Israel has a policy of not entering “the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem” (except the Old City, and they sometimes make an exception for the “City of David” located in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan).

Somehow I’m certain Danny Danon will not applaud this specific initiative, even though it does fulfill his wish that Diaspora Jews coming on free trips to Israel get a chance to see “all of Israel.”