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Last Updated: May 26th, 2006 - 13:56:10 |
Yitzhak Sandroy lives with his wife and 1-year-old daughter in a narrow metal container with a wooden attachment in the outpost of Mitzpeh Yitzhar.
Mitzpeh Yitzhar's residents see the outpost's land as a sort of undefined no-man's-land. But the Sasson Report on outposts has determined that the land is "probably privately owned."
Sandroy's previous two houses were demolished in operations to evacuate outposts. The first was built on the hill where he set up the original outpost, some 400 meters southeast of the present spot. It was demolished in the summer of 2003, when 1,000 troops and policemen clashed with hundreds of hilltop youths. The second house was torn down in a similar wrangle between some 1,000 policemen and 2,000 settlers and their supporters.
Sandroy's third home is positioned outside the original outpost area, which is banned for residence by the IDF. His neighbor, Yossi Pilant, was the first soldier to call on other soldiers to disobey orders in the midst of evacuating settlers in January 2005. After serving 28 days in prison, Pilant joined Sandroy to set up the third Mitzpeh Yitzhar. He and his wife also live in a shipping container with an adjacent wooden structure.
Sandroy is an odd-job man, employed by Yitzhak Skali, who set up another outpost in the Elon Moreh area. In the last few months Sandroy has renovated dozens of mobile homes for the Netzarim evacuees who reached Ariel. Sandroy and Pilant's wives are teachers in the Yitzhar settlement. The outpost is also inhabited by several unmarried men.
Sandroy's parents, members of the Habad movement, moved to Yitzhar in the West Bank from Kiryat Malachi 13 years ago, when Sandroy was 12, at the instruction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he says. The boy was sent to the Hitzim high school yeshiva near the Itamar settlement and later the the Hesder yeshiva in Shavei Shomron.
Sandroy served in the IDF in the Sa-Nur area in the West Bank. The Sa-Nur artists village was abandoned at the time for fear of terror and the intifada. Sandroy decided to save the settlement and formed a Habad group to inhabit it. From there he moved to Yitzhar with a group of high school dropouts who needed special care.
"Some of the boys took drugs, some were in other kinds of trouble. In Yitzhar they were given a framework, a home and food. Together we set up Miztpeh Yitzhar, which was planned as a farm. It was supposed to be an education center without a lot of politics. Only later I become aware that our act had strategic, ideological and security significance," he says.
Sandroy washes his hands of the violence accompanying the evacuation of the outposts, which he claims was caused by people from the outside. He says that he, the Yesha council and rabbis had no control over all those who came to the outposts in those days.
As far as he is concerned, "I am continuing my parents' and the Habad way of unity and love of Israel. We have no intention of causing separation and hatred, even if they come to evacuate us again," he says.
Sandroy has applied to the military authorities' civil administration to issue a "first tender," which would enable the settlers to claim ownership on some 40 dunams. The approach was made via the Land Redemption Fund and attorney Doron Nir Zvi, who represents several settlers in the region.
The military authorities have suspended handling this request and similar ones from nearby outposts, at the government's instructions.
Sandroy knows he may have to evacuate his home for the third time. "I know it is impossible to defeat the army, but it is my duty to protest."
How does he intend to prevent violence in the next evacuation? "In other ways," he explains. "We may have talks with the army, we may agree on a protest pattern." This is not surprising in view of Sandroy's relations with the IDF. The previous brigade commander Ariel Knafo maintained ongoing ties with Sandroy and even promised, Sandroy says, to help him build the outpost as a civilian, after leaving the IDF.
© Copyright 5764, 5765 by author and Tsel Harim
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