A few weeks ago ago I wrote about Nadia Matar and Givat HaEitam.

This weekend's Makor Rishon had an interesting and related story that explains how Nadia and friends were eventually able to go up to the Eitam hill and how it became officially a part of Efrat.

It was around a year ago that that the case of the Eitam Hill went to an army court (which is apparently were some of these cases are disputed). The Jews showed the original purchase documentation, the Arabs of course claimed it was all forged.

The documentation claimed the land was bought in 1947 by a man named Mr. Molcho.

As you all know, the War of Independence broke out a short while later and Gush Etzion was lost, and many of its Jewish residents were massacred by the Arabs.

To prove their claim to the Eitam hill, the Arabs hired the services of a Mr. Aharoni (an Efrat resident). Mr. Aharoni had a company that took aerial photographs of the region, and they wanted to improve the strength of their case, by showing photographs of the region.

Went they got to the judge, Mr. Aharoni spoke up and mentioned an interesting point.

Now nearly 80 years old, back in 1947 Mr. Aharoni was 17 and used to ride around with Mr. Molcho for his protection, and in turns out, he was one of the witnesses to the purchase of Givat HaEitam.

The Arabs immediately withdrew their case, and the land was indisputably designated as Jewish owned land.

A while later one of the Arabs even admitted that they knew the purchase was real, but since Mr. Molcho and his wife were dead, they figured no one would be able to prove it if they took it to court and claimed the documents were forged. They assumed the court would side with them.

Think about that story next time an Arab says a land sale to a Jew is fake.