We’re here because we’re hereTHE fate of 42 Israeli families, living on a windswept hilltop in the West Bank half an hour’s drive north of Jerusalem, could change the rules of Israel’s 49-year-old occupation of the area. The settlement was built in 1995 on what was in fact privately owned Palestinian land. The settlers claim they were not aware of this—which may be true, as land records in the West Bank are not always clear or complete, dating as many of them do back to Ottoman times. Despite a High Court order to evict them by December 25th, and repeated government offers of alternative housing nearby, the settlers are refusing to budge from what they see as their homes in historically Jewish territory. They have promised not to use violence when the security forces come to remove them, but large signs like “On Amona we will go to war”, and the dozens of young settlers who have already arrived as reinforcements, suggest the opposite.
This puts Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition in a bind. Members of the hard-right Jewish Home party are threatening to leave the coalition if Amona is forcibly cleared,...Continue reading
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