"Is Israel The World's Worst Terror State? An Israeli General's Son Thinks So"
Israel announces more settlements after West Bank demolition protests
Benjamin Netanyahu approves 300 homes in religious West Bank settlement as a sweetener after residents protested angrily over the destruction of two unauthorised buildings
29 Jul 2015
Bulldozers demolished two illegal buildings on an Israeli West Bank settlement amid violent protests on Wednesday after an angry confrontation that exposed Benjamin Netanyahu's dependency on Right-wing settlers.
Israeli settlers scuffle with Border Police officers at the Jewish settlement of Beit El (Reuters)
The demolitions in the religious settlement of Beit El went ahead afterIsrael's high court rejected a last minute appeal and triggered emotional reactions from settlers at the scene, some of whom wept openly and remonstrated with massed riot police.
In a graphic sign of the high feelings, Motti Yogev, an MP with the far-Right pro-settler Jewish Home party, called for the high court to be demolished with bulldozers.
“This is High Court charlatanism, this is injustice," he said. "A D9 tractor scoop should be used against the court and we will pass laws to restrain the court’s rule of the country.”
Mr Netanyahu, the prime minister - fearful of a rebellion among pro-settler ministers that could threaten the survival of his narrow coalition - immediately announced the approval of plans for 300 new homes in Beit El in compensation.
Israeli paramilitary police detain a Jewish settler protesting the demolition of two partially-built dwellings (Reuters)
He also approved plans for 500 new homes in settlements in annexed East Jerusalem, a sector Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state, while Israel claims the entire city as its "eternal and indivisible" capital.
The move risked bringing the Israeli leader into fresh confrontation with the United States and European Union, which have criticised West Bank settlement building as an "obstacle to peace".
But it eased the pressure on Mr Netanyahu inside his coalition - which has a parliamentary majority of just one - after Naftali Bennett, the Jewish Home leader and education minister, praised the announcements. "This is the way in which we will build our country," he said.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's ruling executive, called it a "war crime" aimed at imposing a "greater Israel on historic Palestine", thus further diminishing the chances for a two-state solution.
Mr Netanyahu's move was prompted by anger among Right-wing cabinet members over demolition orders facing two uncompleted apartment blocks known as the Dreinoff buidlings, which the high court ruled had been built on private Palestinian land and without proper permits.
A last-minute bid to persuade the court to overturn its earlier ruling failed on Wednesday despite Mr Netanyahu, fearing a Right-wing backlash, announcing that he opposed demolishing the buildings.
At Beit El - a settlement reputedly built on the site where Jacob dreamt of a ladder to heaven, according to the Book of Genesis - kippa-wearing protesters, many of them children, threw plastic bottles and other objects at armoured police deployed to cordon off the condemned buildings. The security forces quelled the demonstrations with foul-smelling skunk water.
A last-minute bid to persuade the court to overturn its earlier ruling failed on Wednesday (Reuters)
After numerous noisy confrontations, the crowed fell quiet when the first demolition machine moved in, watching in sullen resignation without trying to intervene.
Many protesters compared the court decision to the evacuation of settlers in the Gush Katif settlement bloc in Gaza 10 years ago this month, ordered as part of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan.
"Once these buildings come down it will create a precedent," said Elana Shalev, 40, who has lived in Beit El for 15 years. "All of these other buildings around will also have to come down. Eventually it will be the whole of Israel, Tel Aviv, Haifa, it will be all over."
Nearby a man consoled a teenage boy who had been reduced to tears by the scene. "You are allowed to cry," the man said. "The person who doesn't cry about this isn't normal."
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