We will soon find out whether Israeli Jewish settlers will leave the illegal Amona settlement in the West Bank voluntarily or by force. Home to some 40 families, Amona is under a High Court order to be evacuated by Dec. 25 because it is built on private Palestinian land. But its residents have rejected the ruling and vow to stay. Such defiance raises the specter of violence once again. In 2006, the demolition of nine permanent houses in the outpost when security forces carried out a High Court of Justice ruling led to clashes between settlers and Israeli security forces.
Fast-forward to a decade later and the Israeli government is the most rightwing in the country’s history. Key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, as well as Netanyahu himself, advocate settlement building, annexing most of the West Bank while covertly and overtly opposing the idea of a Palestinian state.
Most of Netanyahu’s constituents in the Likud oppose the evacuation of Amona but Israel’s political and judicial leaders must not be intimidated by the threats of violence made by those opposed to the evacuation. From the start, the 40 Amona families had argued that the outpost was built with an initial nod of approval from government officials, including the Ministry of Housing and Construction. They settled in Amona with the tacit, and explicit, support of consecutive governments that provided them with roads, water, electricity and other infrastructure. Government ministers led them to believe the matter would be sorted out and settlers relied on these promises.
True, they could have easily inquired and discovered that the land set aside for Amona belonged to private Palestinian individuals. Or read history books. In 1995, Amona was founded on Palestinian land by young Israeli settlers. It was constructed on Palestinian property and was used to cultivate and grow crops on land that was stolen. And an Israeli police investigation revealed that the entire outpost not only lies on private Palestinian land, but that documents used by settlers to claim they had purchased the sites were forged.
There was an offer to relocate the Amona families to abandoned Palestinian property on the same West Bank hilltop. The families rejected this last minute compromise as well because the state was not able to promise that permanent homes could be built on the hilltop.
Amona is a test case of whether Israel will heed international calls to halt continued settlement growth in the West Bank. Israel’s rightwing Jewish Home Party - the political keepers of the settler movement – is setting in motion legislation originally aimed at saving Amona, but at the same time legalizing more than 50 other West Bank outposts, carving out roughly 2,000 acres of land. Currently, it looks like Amona will be sacrificed so as not to undermine the High Court, with Jewish Home focusing its efforts on the status of the 50 outposts. If successful, it would be a first step toward annexation of the West Bank. That’s why the case of Amona is drawing international concern.
Already, the battle for Amona has yielded a positive result for settlements. A settlements bill has passed the first reading in the Knesset. It retroactively legalizes 4,000 homes on private Palestinian property while offering the Palestinian landowners compensation. But, of course, no matter how generous the monetary compensation may be, if Palestinians abandon their land, it would be tantamount to collusion with Israel and the selling out of the Palestinian cause.
Ultimately, the future of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land is not a legal or legislative matter that can be solved in the Knesset or the Israeli courtroom. Settlements are illegal as they encroach on a future Palestinian state. Almost the entire world acknowledges this basic fact.
