The IDF’s Civil Administration stands accused of working to assist Palestinian Authority Arabs in illegally grabbing Jewish-owned land.

The head of the Bik’at HaYarden (Jordan Valley) regional authority, David Elhayani, has sent a strongly worded letter to senior official in the Civil Administration in which he blames them for expropriating Jewish land in the community of Tomer in order to establish a village for Arabs who invaded the land illegally.

Elhayani told Arutz Sheva that the problem began three years ago. “Law-flouting criminals entered the jurisdictional limits of a community. They were issued stop work orders and demolition orders but nothing was done.” Now, he explained, the Civil Administration wants to give them official status as a village and approve zoning plans for them.

Making the matter stranger is the fact that the Prime Minister and Defense Minister do not seem to know of the IDF Civil Administration’s move. Elhayani quoted a letter he received from Ruth Bar, an assistant to the Minister of Defense, which says the entire initiative belongs to the Civil Administration and the Ministry of Defense was not aware of it. Even the Head of IDF Central Command was not consulted in the matter, said Elhayani.. 

“The Civil Administration is working to establish the State of Palestine,” he said. “In whose name are they operating? It is not in their authority. This group is subverting the government. It encourages lawbreakers to keep using the same mode of operation.”

Elhayani estimated that the subversion “will not pass quietly” and warned that Jews could take the law into their own hands as well.

Nationalists in Israel have gotten used to stories like this, which indicate strongly that the radical left has succeeded in subverting parts of the official establishment.