By Ryan Jones
Feb 01, 2006
Hundreds of Jews were sent to the hospital (by fellow Jews), the settlers were further demonized increasing an already deep national rift, and yet another thriving community was destroyed all for the sake of gaining a few extra mandates in Israel's general election next month.
That is how many in Israel saw Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert?s decision to send in thousands of armor-clad riot police to evict a handful of Jewish settlers and their supporters Wednesday morning in an unprecedented show of force by an Israeli government against its own citizens.
Ground zero for the confrontation: the tiny village of Amona in the Binyamin region of Israel's central hill country.
As the evacuation got underway, live images of mounted and club-wielding officers charging into groups of Israelis teens elicited expressions of shock from more than one television news anchor.
By mid-afternoon it was all over, and IDF bulldozers moved in to demolish Amona's nine beautiful houses. The casualty figures stood at 100 police officers and at least 220 civilians wounded, among them two members of Knesset. At least one on each side was hospitalized in very serious condition.
Residents of the small hilltop village wondered why they were being targeted, pointing out the following facts on their website (www.amona.org.il):
In 2001, the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, criticized a resident of Amona, asking: "Why haven't you started building yet?"
During Ehud Barak's term of office as prime minister, Amona was defined as a vital outpost from the security aspect.
The Israeli government has invested enormous sums of money in order to prepare the plots for the construction of the homes that are now designated for destruction.
The lands on which the permanent homes are built were purchased, or are in the process of being purchased, from Arabs in whose name it is registered.
There was no Arab presence in Amona before the settlement was established. No Arab has made any claims to the land of Amona.
The timing of the move in the near absence of any serious international pressure and against a community that was well established for years already under what appear to be terms that would hold up in most courts of law could only be explained as a political maneuver by Olmert and his Kadima Party to secure more leftist votes.
Speaking to Army Radio as the expulsion got underway, Likud MK Uzi Landau accused Olmert of looking for a fight, explaining that the stand-in leader needed such a diversion after last week's Hamas victory exposed the failures of his party's ?disengagement? policies.
?Ehud Olmert wants confrontation at all cost. His refusal to compromise with the settlers proves we face a struggle not over the rule of law, but a political maneuver aimed at distracting the public from his role in Hamas' victory. He cannot fight terror, so he turns the settlers into the enemy.?
Bentzi Lieberman, head of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, said he and his colleagues tried repeatedly to strike a deal with the government, but that Olmert was apparently determined to bring the issue to blows in order to win his party perhaps one more seat.
Lamenting the avoidable confrontation, Lieberman told Army Radio:
?No other sector of Israeli society would be treated as Olmert is treating the Amona residents and supporters.?
In fact, illegal Arab construction not only in the ?disputed territories? but throughout sovereign Israel is far more rampant than the building taking place in a few scattered Jewish outposts, but somehow it eludes the attention of the government.
Noted Landau:
?If Olmert had only the rule of law in mind, he would treat everyone equally. The Palestinians build more than 1,000 illegal homes in the Jerusalem region every year. But he (Olmert) takes care of nine homes in Amona.?