Zarog family; Photo credit: Avraham Shapira
Wednesday, October 2, 2019, 12:39 The GOC of the Central Command, Major-General Nadav Padan, has signed on an administrative order distancing Yitzhar resident Neriya Zarog from all of Yehuda and Shomron for approximately two months. Policemen from the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police served Zarog with the order, which also prohibits him from contacting 16 of his friends, as he was on his way to celebrate Rosh HaShana at his parents’ home.
Neriya Zarog lives with his wife, Miriam, and their two children on Kumi Ori, one of Yitzhar’s hilltops. Neriya is a yeshiva student at the local kollel and tends a flock of goats, Miriam is a holistic therapist and they are home-schooling their children. In an interview last week Miriam called on Maj.-Gen. Padan to refrain from signing the administrative order: “I call on Major-General Padan to renounce his intent to serve Neriya with the order. Stop the destruction [of hilltops] and the harassment of residents who have come to protect the Land. The army is meant to combat terrorists and to deal with terrorism.”
In late August Maj.-Gen. Padan announced that he intended to serve Zarog with an administrative order distancing him from his home and almost all of Yehuda and Shomron. The announcement raised a public outcry, including protests and letters of support.
Over a period of weeks dozens of supporters demonstrated opposite the home of Major-General Padan and also opposite the Shomron Brigade Base in protest of the intent to serve Zarog with the administrative distancing order. On September 4 dozens of women and children from Yitzhar demonstrated opposite the Shomron Brigade Base, demanding that Maj.-Gen. Padan refrain from signing on the administrative order.
One week later, more than 150 women, all of them Yitzhar residents and friends of Miriam Zarog, wrote a letter to Major General Nadav Padan, demanding that he refrain from signing on the administrative order against her husband, Neriya. The women have explained that the order harms not only Neriya, but also Miriam and their very young children, and all without a trial or proof of any crime committed. Rabbi Dov Lior, the Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba, and Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsberg, of Chabad, cosigned a letter of support on September 23. Also Transportation Minister Betzalel Smotritz sent a letter in defense of Zarog to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is serving also as Defense Minister, requesting that he order “the cancellation of the intent to expel the Zarog family from their home, without judgment and without a trial.”
Honenu, which has been assisting Zarog, strongly criticized the order: “The order served to Neriya Zarog is a judicial and ethical disgrace. The GSS and the IDF are using procedures dating from the time of the British Mandate to harass Jews striving for the sake of the Land of Israel who have committed no crime. Without a trial and without a judge. We hope that with the closing of the year its adversities will pass, and that the decision makers will put an end to this prolonged scandal.”