Sham eviction to allow more settlements

Also see foot of posting for details of the parliamentary settlements debate on February 9th, 2017.

Flamboyant resistance as police move into Amona. Photo by AFP.

The Mock Eviction

In exchange for this simulated evacuation, with all its accompanying drama, settlers will now extract additional victories for their nefarious enterprise

Haaretz Editorial
February 02, 2017

The Israel Police and Israel Defence Forces proved on Wednesday that when they want to, they can be nonviolent. The settlers proved that their blackmailing abilities have not faded and that they will stop at nothing to gain more achievements. The government and most of the Israeli media proved that they will always co-operate with the settlers’ cynical manipulations, which on Wednesday rang up another significant victory.

The police and army were enforcing a court order and evicted a handful of settlers who had built their homes on stolen private land. This eviction should have taken place long ago; it would have been self-evident in a state of law, and not turned into a national debate that kept decision makers and the public preoccupied for months. But the settlers, with the government’s assistance, decided to take what was self-evident and fabricate a drama out of it, all to pave the way for the passage of the scandalous expropriation law next week.

Along the way, the government demolished homes in Kalansua and Umm al-Hiran, a government “price tag” attack to ease the trauma of the Amona evacuation among right-wing voters who believe that settlers should be allowed to do as they please in the occupied territories.

From the start it was clear that Wednesday’s evacuation display was aimed solely to serve these interests. The Amona evictees knew from the start that they had settled on stolen private land, but it didn’t stop them. That’s why they don’t deserve either compassion or compensation. The way they conducted themselves against the security forces that came to enforce the law was a serious act. It isn’t hard to imagine how the police would have responded if Israeli Arabs or Palestinians had thrown rocks or poured bleach on them.

Government compensation – in the form of declaring that thousands of new homes will be built in the territories as a response to Amona – is part of the planned false presentation. As was Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s declaration Wednesday that the settlers had “lost the battle.”

Gently does it: police carry away a settler from the Amona outpost. Photo by Oded Balilty/AP

That’s incorrect; the settlers in fact won another battle on Wednesday. In exchange for this simulated evacuation, with all its accompanying drama, they will now extract additional victories for their nefarious enterprise. Bennett has already promised a new settlement, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman promised another 3,000 homes and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called Wednesday “a difficult and sad day for the people of Israel.”

A day on which the law is enforced in the State of Israel is not a sad day. If not for the settlers’ violent resistance and blackmail, it could even have been a day of satisfaction, certainly for the minister responsible for law enforcement in this country.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.

The Prime Minister keeps his mouth shut. Tel Aviv, January 31, 2017 photo by Eyal Toueg

Netanyahu Is Doing Everything to Appease the Settlers, but Even This Won’t Be Enough

If Amona were an Arab village, the prime minister would have incited against the protesters. But as the illegal West Bank outpost was evacuated, he kept silent.

By Yossi Verter, Analysis, Haaretz premium
February 02, 2017

Netanyahu kept quiet on Wednesday. Perhaps the difficult scenes at Amona took him back to his and his family’s private trauma, when they were evicted after the ‘99 elections from the Prime Minister’s Residence.

“I understand what it’s like to lose a home,” he told Amona residents a few weeks ago, when he was called to see them late at night from that peeling residence he had returned to eight years ago.

Israeli settlers sit inside a settler house in protest at the Amona outpost, northeast of Ramallah, on February 1, 2017 as security forces evict the hardline occupants of the wildcat settlement outpost in line with a High Court ruling that determined the homes were built on private Palestinian land. [The Atlantic has dubbed these settlers as ‘wildcat’.]

Netanyahu kept quiet as hundreds of brainwashed, hot-tempered hooligans (who on Channel 2 were called “guys,” “youths” and “enthusiasts”), entrenched themselves in the illegal outpost, rioted, cursed and threw debris and liquids on police officers. If Amona were an Arab village in the eastern Sharon, Netanyahu would have launched a series of ranting, inciting tweets against the protesters.

But the settlers are his pets, Amona is above the law and he already hastened to promise to build for its 40 families, who for 20 years knowingly robbed private Palestinian land, a new settlement. Whatever the cost. Money is no object when we’re dealing with the precious settlers.

He didn’t see fit to issue some formal denunciation even when his coalition member, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), a famous feminist, compared the Amona evacuation to the rape of a woman. The settler party’s leader, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, also swallowed his tongue.

The Amona evacuation, which was dragged out for years, will be registered on Netanyahu and Bennett’s names. Neither of them will be able to make political capital from the other’s distress. Maybe there’ll be no distress. The prime minister and defence minister have recently approved building thousands of housing units throughout the West Bank, most of them in the settlement blocs.

Trump gave the tacit approval for the new settlement binge. Photo from National Review.

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The prime minister and defence minister have recently approved building thousands of housing units throughout the West Bank, most of them in the settlement blocs.

Officials say that without a nod from the White House, Netanyahu wouldn’t have dared to approve this wave of construction, or to commit to building a new settlement for the first time in about 25 years, before meeting U.S. President Donald Trump.

If Netanyahu believes this will satisfy the settlers, he’s in for a bitter disappointment. They are far beyond the stage of mere construction. They are demanding annexation and Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, as Bennett said in the Knesset on Wednesday.

After he returns from his visit with Trump, they will serve Netanyahu with a pile of checks to sign and he won’t be able to call for restraint in the name of some international pressure.

The obscene bill legalizing land confiscation and illegal outposts is expected to pass in the Knesset next week with the support of the prime minister, who warned repeatedly of the legislation’s legal and international repercussions. That too won’t satiate Bibi and Bennett’s constituency. The settlers always deserve more and always, praise God, there’s someone who pays.

Settlements debate

Parliament UK

On Thursday 9 February MPs will debate a motion on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the House of Commons Chamber.

This debate will be led by Sir Desmond Swayne, Mark Williams, Chris Bryant, Tommy Sheppard & Dr Tania Mathias.

The Motion to be debated
“That this House reaffirms its support for the negotiation of a lasting peace between two sovereign states of Israel and Palestine, both of which must be viable and contiguous within secure and internationally recognised borders; calls on the Government to take an active role in facilitating a resumption of international talks to achieve this; welcomes UN Security Council Resolution 2334 adopted on 23 December 2016; and further calls on the government of Israel immediately to halt the planning and construction of residential settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories which is both contrary to international law and undermines the prospects for the contiguity and viability of the state of Palestine.”

Settlements debate
On Thursday 9th of February, MPs have a chance to take part in a parliamentary debate about Israel’s illegal and immoral settlements. We want to make sure as many MPs as possible are asked to speak up for Palestinian human rights.

Please make sure you press your MP to speak on the 9th of February.

from Palestine Solidarity Campaign