Illustration
Photo: Amit Shabi
Yesha Council: We'll fight to protect outposts
Council calls on settlers to 'meet any evacuation attempt with fierce objection.' Defending settlements 'is our moral right and duty,' says council's leaflet
The Yesha Council called on its supporters Sunday to "get ready for a long, determined fight to protect the settlements."
"Any attempt to evacuate even one single caravan must be met with fierce objection," said the council's statement.
The council's call came after its members expressed their concern that the government might decide to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts prior to the Annapolis peace conference.
Clashes Ahead?
Ministers Livni, Lieberman argue over committee on outposts' authority to decide on evacuation of settlements. Committee head Ramon sides with foreign minister, saying IDF chief of staff, defense minister to make such decisions
Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, told Ynet he believed that the government might "choose to mask some sort of an altercation with the settlers, as a show of goodwill towards the Americans and Abu-Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas), before Annapolis.
"I hope it doesn't come to that but I have to get our public ready… we'll try to reach an understanding, but we have to be ready for the alternative. It's not a war but it is a fight," he added.
"Unfortunately, we may find ourselves in the middle of another fight in the near future and we will have to fight with determination and resolve… The sword is upon us from two directions now: form way of the High Court and from way of the Defense Ministry, which is diligently following the prime minister's orders to evacuate settlements," wrote the council in its weekly leaflet "Our Yesha".
The leaflet also addressed the issue of Yesha Council's ongoing discussions with the defense establishment. "We have been trying to make the defense establishment solve the settlements' issue in peaceful ways, rather through threats and violence, for a long time now," said the leaflet, "but in the past few weeks the defense minister has been unilaterally, aggressively, working against us all.
"Anyone striking against us will find themselves against a determined public, ready to defend its life work and its beliefs. It is our moral right as well as our duty," it read.
