"We demand that the Prime Minister carry out the agreements and
understandings," say residents.
Residents of Migron held a news conference Monday, one day after the
High Court refused to countenance the agreements they had reached
with the government about a gradual relocation of their community to
a nearby location.
Itai Harel, one of the founders of Migron, showed journalists an
aerial photograph taken before the community was established. "In all
of the area of Migron, one does not see a single tree or house in the
photos," he explained. No one ever thought it was his. The Jordanian
government registered it as someone´s, but no one saw himself as
having been deprived of his property until Peace Now approached them.
"The government has reached compromises with us; we demand that the
Prime Minister carry out the agreements and understandings and carry
out everything that we discussed," he added.
Migron was built with government help on land whose ownership is
unclear, except for the fact that it is not state land. Peace Now
launched a lawsuit before the Supreme Court aimed at destroying the
community. It seems that some of it was given by King Hussein to
Jordanians who never laid claim to it. Jordan was an occupying power
in Judea and Samaria from 1949-1967.
The compromise, worked out by MK Benny Begin (Likud) with much
difficulty, would have had the residents move to a small, nearby area
that is uncontested state land and have the present Migron houses
used by the government for other purposes. The compromise was agreed
to by both government and residents in order to avoid both the
violence that accompanied the destruction of the houses at Amona in
2006 and the bitter split in the nation that occurred due to the
expulsion from the Katif Bloc in 2005.
