Jewish settlement stronghold evacuated
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 10/19/1999

Minutes ago the Israeli settlements council announced that it has quietly evacuated an Israeli settlement where evacuation was blocked earlier and that the work lasted a few hours.

The first unmanned Jewish settlement stronghold that was supposed to be evacuated Tuesday, but remained intact as Jewish settlers in the West Bank failed to evacuate it. The evacuation was supposed to be the start of a process which Israelis believe could set a precedent for the evacuation of more Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories while the Palestinians believe it is a smokescreen that is aimed at improving Israel's image worldwide.

The Israeli government and the council of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip agreed upon the evacuation last week following marathon negotiations between the two sides. Some of the strongholds are unmanned at all yet have some temporary structures while others have very few settlers living in them. The settlers demanded that they themselves be in charge of dismantling their strongholds without any involvement by the soldiers. They obviously did not want to furnish the press with pictures of soldiers forcing them out of their settlements. The Israeli government too was not interested in this kind of coverage since anyway the evacuation is not as serious as many thought it would be.

Jewish settlement leaders tried to conceal the place names and dates of evacuation arguing that the media would be liable to "depict the settlers as having failed in the struggle against Ehud Barak." Meanwhile, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein will investigate whether a religious ruling circulated recently among Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories constitutes illegal incitement. The new ruling states that a Jew who takes part in transferring territory will be complicit in causing bloodshed. This Jewish law, signed by four rabbis, was written in response to the Wye accord in October 1998, and has been re-released now, following the agreement reached by settler delegates and the Barak government concerning the evacuation of illegal strongholds. The circular was disseminated to thousands of demonstrators who protested in front of the prime minister's house last Sunday night against the stronghold evacuation.

"The very discussion of handing over territory belonging to the Land of Israel to gentiles puts the life of Israel at risk, representing a real danger, and so any support that is given to the process of transferring land constitutes complicity in spilling the blood of the people of Israel," said the decree. It was formulated carefully so that it does not imply that the transference of lands will lead to violence and bloodshed, a matter that its authors wanted to avoid in order not to repeat the events that led to the assassination five years ago of former Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin.

Justice Minister Yossi Beilin asked Rubinstein to examine whether the ruling constituted sedition and incitement noting in his letter that the lesson from the Rabin assassination has been learned and that it was "wrong to ignore any such statement which is uttered on the fringes of the ultra-nationalist camp."

Previous Stories:
  Secret contacts between Barak and Arafat   (10/18/1999)
  Prisoners released but Palestinians still unsatisfied   (10/15/1999)
  Barak respond to the Jewish settlers' pressure   (10/14/1999)
  Barak confirms dissolution of illegal settlements   (10/13/1999)

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