The 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and Northern Samaria failed to achieve its stated aim of ensuring better security and an improved political and demographic reality, states a bill now being considered by the Israeli Knesset, and therefore there is no further reason to prevent Israelis from returning to four northern Samaria communities they were forced to evacuate more than a decade ago.
The bill, sponsored by Bayit Yehudi MK Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli and set for debate on Sunday, would officially lift the ban that has remained in place since 2005, blocking Israelis from entering the area around Sa-Nur, Homesh, Ganim and Kadim. It’s not the first attempt by the Bayit Yehudi party to create the conditions for a return to northern Samaria.
”Despite the expulsion of the Jewish residents from northern Samaria, no change has taken place with respect to the status of the area or the military presence on the ground,” the bill states. “Therefore, it makes sense that reverting back to before the disengagement will begin in northern Samaria.
“To this end, it is proposed to annul the prohibition placed on the entry of Israeli citizens to the area and allow the Jewish settlers to return to the settlements from which they were uprooted,” the bill states.
“The purpose of the 2005 Disengagement was to facilitate a better security, political, economic and demographic reality, but the situation on the ground has proved it created the opposite,” it points out.