Netanyahu now convinced settlers should leave.
Palestine, Local, 9/18/1997

As signs poured out of the Israeli prime minister's office that Benyamin Netanyahu is now willing to take action against the Isreali settlers who took over Arab houses in the Ras Al Amoud neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, the settlers have resorted to the Israeli High Court in a bid to obtain an order forbidding the Israeli authorities from forcibly evicting them from the houses. The High Court, meeting on Thursday, has to view the appeal made by American Jewish financier Irwin Moskowitz who claimed he had bought the area of land where the houses are located in the early 1990s from a Jewish organization which allegedly bought the site more than one hundred years ago.

The petition claims that their stay in the Arab houses neither disturbs public order nor does it constitue a danger to public security, a legal cover that Netanyahu might have to use should he take a decision to evict the settlers by force. The government's attorney general, Elyakim Rubenstein, has established in a legal opinion that eviction is allowed when general security or public order are disrupted. Rubinstein added that such a decision must be made by police together with the rest of the security branches in Israel, including the army and the General Security Services, better known as the Shin Bet.

Netanyahu decided to get the settlers out after he became convinced that their move had damaged Israel's image in the world and created a potential source of renewed violence in the region. Yet he was hesitant on whether to carry out such a step, bearing in mind the image his political foes will try to portray for him as the first Israeli prime minister who ordered his troops to forcibly evict Jewish settlers from houses in Jerusalem. Netanyahu's choices, the sources said, were between the evil and the devil. One one hand, he had in front of him the possiblity of an open flagration with the Palestinian National Authority and the consequent pressure that might come from Washington, and on the other hand, his image as someone who took action against settlers.

Yet Netanyahu seems to have gained a moral support from somewhere he did not expect. Two leading ultra-Orthodox religious powers have come out openly against the Jewish settlement in Ras Al Amoud. Shas leader Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef said that if the security officials believe that the Ras Al Amoud settlement endangers lives, the settlers must be forcibly evicted. Rabbi Yosef published a halachic [Jewish legal] ruling against the settlement and even recommended that the settlers be forcibly evicted. ³If the security forces believe that the settlement endangers human life, their opinion should be trusted and the families should be forcefully evicted, if they do not leave of their own will,² he said. He added that if the Israeli security, for example, believe that "this action will God forbid bring about a terrorist attack, then it is forbidden to settle there. Is the value of houses there more than the value of one Jewish soul?²

Rabbi Shach¹s newspaper, Yeted Ne¹eman, which represents the views of the ultra-Orthodox Jews of Eastern European descent called the settlement in Ras Al Amoud a "provocation to the Gentiles.² ³All this pretense at innocence by the people of the right, as though they were protecting sovereign rights all over Jerusalem, is an attempt to light the fuse under the keg of gun powder we are all sitting upon, and completely destroy the chances for any sort of political arrangement with the Palestinians,² The paper said, A third ultra orthodox political force, Agudat Yisrael, also said it does not support the settlement and called it a ³political mine.²

Nonetheless, the Prime Minister is seeking a compromise agreeable to the settlers. Netanyahu would prefer that the families leave voluntarily, but if that should not happen, he is determined to forcibly evict them. One of the most reasonable compromise proposals that Netanyahu seems willing to accept and have if accepted by the settlers too is to have the families leave and be replaced by a guard in their name. At the same time, the government will announce that it recognizes the legal property rights of these settlers to reside in Ras Al Amoud but that at the present time such residence would not be permitted.


The Israeli army, meanwhile, stepped up its forces all over the West Bank following incidents of stone-throwing and rubber tire burning on Wednesday. Those were signs that reminded the Israeli public with the seven year Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Thursday morning said that the Palestinan people, who revolted against the occupation for seven years, are now ready to renew their struggle and start a new intifada (intifada means uprising in Arabic)." Arafat spoke in a special interview given to a documentary filmed for French Television.

In a related development, Safwan Hadiyeh, the son of the Arab tenant of one of the houses taken over by the settlerss, said that his father never sold the house or the protected tenant rights to anyone, "certainly not to Moskowitz." He stressed that his father never received money and did not flee the country. Earlier reports said the father, Fuad, had left the country and is currently living in Ukraine after he was allgedly paid US $1.5 m.

Hadiyeh recounted that he and his brother left their house to visit relatives, and when they returned, they found the settlers had already moved into their home. He said that he and his brother were in the house until about half an hour before the invasion, and when they returned, the invaders and police prevented their entry into the house.

Previous Stories:
  Ras Al Amoud compromise rejected, showdown goes on   (9/17/1997)
  Ras Al Amoud: Settlers still in. talk of militant confrontation growing   (9/16/1997)
  Jerusalem: Jewish extremists put the last nail in the peace coffin   (9/15/1997)

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