No one knows why Defense Minister Benny Gantz has decided to register 4,000 Palestinian residents on the population books. But at least Gantz's decision can be said to be the right one.
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This is the minimum that the Israeli government owes to residents who could potentially become Israeli citizens. Don't worry, they won't be citizens in in this century. But the Israeli Right is standing up for the principle of declaring that all parts of the Land of Israel, to the Jordan River, can legally be included under Israeli sovereignty, and therefore, all the Arab residents who did not arrived from other countries could one day became citizens of the state.
At this stage, a situation in which thousands of people are under Israel's umbrella but lacking any formalized status is insufferable. They are unregistered and have no documentation, as if they got on the wrong train and landed up in our territory. In this case, they are residents under the control of the Palestinian Authority So the explanation that registering them is a humanitarian act is a little overblown. It's the minimum step the state needs to take for the thousands of illegal residents who have been living under its control for decades, or at least 14 years.
Frequent claims are made that Israelis don't know what is being perpetrated in the territories in their name. In general, this is incorrect. The citizens of Israel are aware of the IDF's activities and those of the other security branches, even the kind that is unaccepted in western countries, because Israel prefers to exist with a minimum of security than to brush up against an imaginary world of progressive, unlimited human rights.
But here you have it, it turns out that things are happening in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, and a big majority doesn't know about them. For example, the existence of thousands of people with special status that is unacceptable to the people currently in charge. Regulating their status is the right step to take, and it didn't need to be made condition on any mutual act.
Of course, it would be better if PA leader Mahmoud Abbas would transfer the aid that is given to terrorists and their families to those same thousands of undocumented residents, and give them permanent status right now. But no one is holding their breath for him to pick up his things and cross to the other side of the Jordan under the cover of night.
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