Amona residents protest evacuation. Second-class citizens?
Photo: Gil Yohanan
The Amona crisis is pure deception
Op-ed: The state’s request from the High Court to delay the illegal outpost’s evacuation was not aimed at regulating the land’s ownership, but at allowing Netanyahu to get through the two months between the US elections and the new president’s arrival at the White House.
The Amona crisis
was born in sin and will die in sin. The state’s request from the High Court of Justice to postpone the illegal outpost’s evacuation was not aimed at regulating the ownership of the land. Its purpose was to allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get through the two months between the US presidential election and the new president’s arrival at the White House.
Netanyahu is afraid of an American proposal being adopted by the United Nations Security Council. In order to calm US President Barack Obama down, he needs the High Court justices. This is not the right time to irritate them with the Regulation Bill.
Netanyahu and Bennett. The Bayit Yehudi leader should know that if Trump archieves an Israeli-Palestinian deal, it will be based on the 1967 borders (Photos: Amit Shabi, Daniel Elior)
The most outrageous thing about this whole story is the sheer deception. The State Prosecutor’s Office and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit are feeding the High Court with false claims, the judges are discussing these claims as if they are real, and Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett is fighting for the voters Netanyahu stole from him on Election Day.
Everyone understands the game—even the Likud ministers, who voted Sunday in favor of the Regulation Bill just because they are more afraid of the Likud Central Committee members than they are of Netanyahu. How will Netanyahu silence the media if he can’t even control his own ministers?
Bennett raised two claims in Sunday in order to justify the tumult he created. Firstly, the settlers in Judea and Samaria are being treated as second-class citizens, although they pay taxes and serve in the reserve forces. This is a dubious claim when it comes to the Amona outpost: If anyone in Israel were to settle on a private land, he would be forcibly evacuated from there. The truth is that Amona’s residents are first-class citizens. Compared to them, Israel’s residents are second-class citizens.
The second argument is that Donald Trump’s victory creates an opportunity for Israel to renege on its agreement for the establishment of a Palestinian state. First of all, Trump isn’t there yet; secondly, no one, including Trump himself, knows what his intentions are.
On Saturday, he declared he would achieve an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It would be “the ultimate deal,” he said. Bennett should know that if there is such a deal, it will be based on the 1967 borders, not on the Amona borders.
