A leader of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel charged on Tuesday that only 100 of the 1,700 families evacuated from the West Bank and northern Samaria settlements have found permanent housing solutions so far, and that only 700 families have found temporary solutions to tide them over. The other 1,000 have no solutions at all.

Meanwhile, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss announced that he ordered his workers to monitor the handling of the evacuation of the settlers by the security forces and the degree of government preparedness for the disengagement. Lindenstrauss said the investigation began two months ago.

Legal Forum founder, attorney Yitzhak Meron charged that the government was fully responsible for the lack of housing solutions because it failed to establish proper communication with the settlers during the disengagement process.

From the beginning, he said, the government acted arrogantly and aggressively.

“The Prime Minister was not brave enough to meet the settlers,” said Meron. “He could not look them in the eye because he knew they helped elect him into office.” The settlers had demanded a referendum to decide on the evacuation, but Sharon refused, Meron recalled. After that, the official leadership of the Gaza settlements refused to talk to the government but had authorized the Legal Forum to represent it.

Sharon, however, refused to meet with the members of the lawyers’ group, Meron charged.

The government also rejected the settlers’ demands to be relocated as communities rather than individuals.

For a long time, the solutions proposed by the government were on an individual basis only. When settlers first came up with a proposal to build a permanent community in the Nitzanim area, the government turned it down. It took two and a half months for government officials to readdress the idea, as opposed to the temporary neighborhood of mobile homes, which is currently in the process of being inhabited, and presented the proposal to the National Planning Committee.

Meron pointed out that even this solution is far from certain at this point. He said about 300 families have expressed interest in moving to a permanent settlement in Nitzanim. However, the government is making them sign an understanding that the homes my never be built because of legal or planning problems and that, if by 2006, the project is not standing, the project will be regarded as defunct and the settlers will be unable to sue for damages.

The government also established an unreasonable evacuation timetable of five (later extended to six) months, charged Meron. “Everyone knew this wasn’t enough time to transfer a population when no one knew where they were supposed to go.”

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni charged on Tuesday that the settlement leadership had refused to accept the reality of the evacuation until the very last minute for political reasons and that this approach had hurt its followers.

“It’s really a shame for the settlers,” she said in a Channel 1 interview. “I visited their homes. They acted as though nothing would happen. I’d hoped to at least see soldiers helping them pack. But there was a conflict of interests between what was best for them and political interests.”

Livni added that she had tried hard to persuade settlers to join the Nitzanim housing plan.

“Even in May, I was reaching out to the settlers, calling on them to take advantage of the solutions we offered… [But] in order to find a solution for the community, there has to be a dialogue between the government and the community. It’s a mutual process.”

In a related development, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged the government to resettle the settlers as quickly as possible.

“All ministries in my government must take immediate action and dedicate maximum possible effort and management to the rebuilding,” he said, according to a cabinet’s communiqu.

Meanwhile, Interior Ministry Planning Authority Director Shamai Asaf told the cabinet that the Nitzanim plan included 1,600 permanent houses, enough to accommodate all of the settlers from the Gaza Strip. He said the development would be built in accordance with the number of evacuated families who are interested in living in the project.

“This plan provides a full answer to each group of settlers that is interested in maintaining its community character,” he said.

This piece ran in the Jerusalem Post, on August 24th, 2005

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