There are two arguments in favor of the battle waged by the Amona outpost settlers against the government and against the settlement establishment. The first is discrimination. Indeed, they are being discriminated against.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained last week that he has to evacuate Jewish invaders, while Arab invaders build their homes undisturbed. This was a groundless argument, of course. No one is stopping the government from demolishing Arabs’ homes which were built illegally, neither within the Green Line nor beyond the Green Line. Arabs definitely do not get the following (and I quote Netanyahu from Sunday’s cabinet meeting): “We have held dozens of discussions, we have brought many proposals, some of them outside the box, very creative proposals. We have done it out of love for the settlement. It’s as simple as that. We have done the maximum.”
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The Amona settlers are fed up with lies. The Zambishes offered them all kinds of solutions with a “wink, ” which were concocted in utmost discretion, not just outside the box – but also outside the law. Until Sunday, at least, they said no. Even if they eventually give in and spare Netanyahu the difficult images involved in a forcible evacuation, their rejection of the culture of lying is worthy of appreciation.
Justice Ministry officials, from the attorney general downwards, who took part in this humiliating process, are deserving of no appreciation. Nothing would have happened to them had they said: We are refusing to take part in this scandal. We get paid to protect the law, not to abuse it.
The settlement in the territories is the most significant, influential enterprise established in Israel in the past 50 years. As the years go by, it gives us more and more land—and less of a state. On the way, it crushes the foundations of statehood laid by the founding generation—the authority of the law, the dignity of the government, the purity of arms, the ambition to live in a Jewish and democratic state.
Amona and its settlers are not the enemy. They are a milestone, a footnote, in a path led by others. As a passionate politician once said, we are on the verge of the abyss, and now we will shall take one big step forward.
By Ynet News