Rightists plan school for construction workers (archives)
Photo: AP
Hilltop Youth to protest outside ministers' houses
Right-wing activists decide on series of moves in response to 10-month construction freeze in settlements. Settlers plan to launch campaign against decision's enforcers, petition court against Arab building and double number of outposts
Members of the Hilltop Youth group and other right-wing activists decided Thursday to launch a series of protest moves in response to the government's decision
to freeze construction in settlements for 10 months.
"Our power is in our unity. Today all the Judea and Samaria settlers are together," one of the activists stated at the end of the meeting. "Bibi (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu)
did not separate between Kiryat Arba, Gush Etzion, Tapuach, Elkana and Beitar. Together we will defeat the strangling commands of those seeking to destroy the settlement."
The decision was made in an emergency meeting held by a forum defining itself as "the campaign headquarters against the settlers' Pharaoh commands".
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The decisions made by the activists include setting up ultra-Orthodox headquarters and protesting outside the homes of the ministers responsible for the decision to limit the construction.
According to the settlers, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are not the only ones responsible for "the crime of choking the settlement," but also Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon and other right-wing ministers, excluding National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau, who voted against the move.
The activists also decided to launch a campaign against public servants who they said would be responsible for enforcing the government's decisions: Prosecutors, administration supervisors, police officers and other professionals in charge of implementing the move.
In a statement issued at the end of the emergency meeting, the settlers wrote, "It's time to put an end to this conduct, to denounce them and remind them in a legal and democratic way that anyone taking part in destruction and demolition cannot enjoy the status of a legitimate neighbor, who works somewhere 'only for the livelihood.'"
The right-wing activists added that "the best defense is good offense, and it's time to move to the stage in which we will demand to return to the cities and villages the IDF has abandoned, and for that purpose there already is a practical plan."
They also agreed to file petitions against Arabs' illegal construction and continue the "doubling campaign", which includes doubling the outposts in the territories and establishing a school for construction workers in order to have young blood help speed up the building.
