Showdown In Hebron

Settler youth, top, kill time waiting for an expected evacuation; right, border soldiers sit atop the “House of Peace.” Photos by Joshua Mitnick

Settler youth, top, kill time waiting for an expected evacuation; right, border soldiers sit atop the “House of Peace.” Photos by Joshua Mitnick

by Joshua Mitnick
Israel Correspondent

Hebron, West Bank — Border police peer down from the rooftop draped with a wall-sized banner reading “High Court of Justice is Sodom.” At the entrance to the building, teen boys strum guitars and mill around with aimless small talk about soccer. Inside the unfinished building, the small children play near a stairwell with a crudely constructed wooden banister.
In the Israeli press, the building is known as the “house of dispute” because of the yearlong legal debate over ownership between settlers and the Palestinian builder. The settlers insist on calling it the “house of peace.”
But with the threat of eviction and riots in the weeks preceding a parliamentary election, some argue that has become a house of votes. Just as Ehud Olmert

signaled his desire to dismantle West Bank settlements with the demolition of nine permanent homes on the Amona outpost during the 2006 campaign, the Hebron building is becoming an issue in the current campaign.
Noam Arnon, a spokesman for the community of 900 Jewish residents of Hebron, accused Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Interior Minister Avi Dichter of ordering the settlers out of the four-story building to improve the sagging electoral prospects of the Labor Party and Kadima.
“They want to inflame the atmosphere for their own political benefit,” he told The Jewish Week. “The whole thing is a provocation.”
Settlers moved into the house a year and a half ago, claiming to have legally purchased it from the Palestinian owners. After receiving a complaint from the owner, the police decided to evict the new tenants under a military order on trespassing.
A settler petition against the police eviction decision has been pending ever since with the High Court until the Nov. 16 decision paving the way for police to remove the occupants within a month.
The escalation of tensions following the court decision drew tens of thousands of supporters who camped out in Hebron last weekend to express solidarity with the handful of families living in the building.
Just a few days before, the friction bubbled over as dozens of settlers clashed with Israeli security forces guarding the building — even pouring turpentine on a soldier. Rioters also desecrated a mosque with derogatory graffiti about the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
“Many moderate settler leaders believe the whole series of incidents were initiated because of political calculation,” said Avraham Diskin, a professor of political science at Hebrew University.
Diskin added that confronting the settlers of Hebron, who are viewed by the general public as among the most extreme of settlers, “is an opportunity to put Labor on the map, to differentiate themselves and demonstrate he is doing what is necessary.”
Indeed, with polls showing the Labor party poised to win only about 10 seats in the next Knesset — shrinking by about one third — Barak seems to have little choice other than confrontation. The media interest in the showdown in Hebron has generated additional pressure on Barak from Labor’s left-wing rival, Meretz.
Knesset Member Avshalom Vilan called on Barak in a statement to “move resolutely to implement the eviction order so it won’t become another decision that doesn’t stand the test of reality.”
Barak told Israeli Army radio last week that “we will work according to the decisions of the High Court of Justice ... I don’t think its possible to leave” the issue to the next Israeli administration.
A spokeswoman at the Israeli Defense Ministry declined to comment on the allegations that Barak’s remarks were colored by politics.
To be sure, Barak isn’t the only politician mixed up in the showdown. Last week, Knesset Member Nissim Zeev from the fervently Orthodox Shas party, moved into the house as an act of solidarity.
Back at the house, an idle settler youth strummed a guitar while singing, “Jews to heaven, Arabs to hell, Jews to heaven, police to hell.” Inside, the building is partially finished. Young adolescents study religious texts in hevruta pairs.
Arnon called on the government to preserve the “peace of the people” and avoid “wars, struggles and clashes among the Israeli people.”
If Barak acts on the eviction, it would trigger a “terrible” event, Arnon predicted. “People here will resist. People here will defend their property. People here will defend their human rights. You can’t expect Jews to just to lose their home and property just because of this racist regime.”
Arnon explained that a ban on Jewish purchase of Palestinian real estate is racist.
Arnon declined to speculate about the means of resistance being planned by the settlers, but said that it would be much more confrontational than resistance to the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip. “It can get out of control. Gush Katif will be like a children’s game.”
The Gaza evacuation of August 2005 left settlers demoralized because of the unexpectedly smooth job of the army. The police-settler clashes prior to the razing of nine permanent houses at the Amona outpost in early 2006 were seen as an effort to boost Olmert’s credentials as a leader who would evacuate West Bank settlements. But violence shifted sympathy from the security forces to the settlers.
Barak will have to weigh using a gentle hand in order to avoid harming teenage protesters with acting forcefully enough to stop riots.
While the Labor Party leader seemed headed toward a clash with the Hebron settlers, he may have found a way to dodge a confrontation over a settlement outpost.
The Defense Ministry revealed the details of a compromise with the Settlers’ Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to relocate the 40 families living on the Migron hilltop outpost.
The deal enables Barak to avoid a confrontation with settlers over Migron — one of the largest outposts, which the state has said was erected on Palestinian land and which the Defense Ministry expects to be evacuated under a commitment made to President George W. Bush. But it also reportedly allows the settlers to remain on the hilltop while new homes are constructed — a process that could take years.
“They are trying to buy more and more time hoping that something will happen so they can avoid dealing with the issue. The fear of the government from the Israeli right wing is paralyzing,” said Dror Etkes a former settlement watchdog at Israel’s Peace Now. “Everybody talks about the Iranian deterrent, the Hamas deterrent, but Israel is the most afraid of dealing with its own citizens,” the Israeli right.
The difference between Migron and Hebron is that in Hebron, the settler youths have all but broken ties with the mainstream settler leadership. The settler umbrella group is being blamed by settler youths for collaborating with the army on the Gaza disengagement.

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