Migron, West Bank – The Israeli military razed three buildings in an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost before dawn on Monday, and clashed with settlers who reject a Supreme Court ruling ordering the enclave to be dismantled.
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Shortly after, Palestinians reported a mosque was torched in a West Bank village. The name of the outpost, Migron, was spray painted on the mosque, suggesting the act was settler retaliation for the demolitions.
Migron has become a symbol of settler defiance. A large contingent of soldiers and police was sent to the outpost, which is the largest in the West Bank and home to some 50 settler families.
Bulldozers knocked down three houses there, but only after settlers scuffled with security forces. Settlers also briefly got a court injunction stopping the demolition, but the injunction was soon overturned.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said six settlers were arrested in connection with the unrest.
Other buildings and mobile homes were left standing on the site.
Yariv Oppenheimer of the anti-settlement group Peace Now said the three buildings were razed because they were built after settlement opponents sued the state to dismantle the entire outpost, which was built on land seized from private Palestinians, in violation of Israeli law.
Outposts are wildcat enclaves that settlers erected in a bid to claim more West Bank land where Palestinians want to build a state. The government did not authorize their erection but turned a blind eye while they were built.
Several thousand of the West Bank’s 300,000 Jewish settlers live in more than 100 outposts built since the 1990s. Israel has not honored its promise to the U.S. to dismantle two dozen of the enclaves.
The demolitions at Migron were carried out under a key Supreme Court ruling last month. The court gave the state until March 31 to tear down the entire outpost and faulted it for failing over the course of five years to come up with a program to evacuate it after it agreed to do so.
Shortly after security forces reached Migron, arsonists used burning tires to set a fire in the first floor study hall of a new mosque in the West Bank village of Qusra, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Fire damage was confined to the walls and ceilings, which were cracked and covered with soot, said Qusra Mayor Hani Ismail.
The name of two outposts, including Migron, were spray painted on the mosque’s outer wall, as was a Star of David. Graffiti calling the Muslim Prophet Muhammad “a pig” was also scrawled on the wall — a grave insult because pigs are considered unclean in Islam.
No one claimed responsibility.
Is Israel also going to demolish the numerous illegally-built arab house???? of course not. the double standard of Jewish self-hatred & appeasement of terrorists knows no bounds.
Why don’t you note the pogrom committed by settlers in burning down a mosque?!
The police need to get control over this situation before it spirals out of control. These settlers are not above the law and have to be shown that they will not be allowed to stand in the way of the government’s efforts to reach a peace settlement. There are legitimate ways to debate a policy and protest but once the government reaches a final decision as it did here, and the courts ratify that decision, they MUST obey or will find themselves thrown in jail. There will be more Gush Katifs as part of any settlement, and even Netanyahu as so acknowledged. They can ease the pain by not building more buildings which will be torn down and bulldozed when the settlers are made to withdraw from land that will be returned to the Palestinians. Lets focus the limited resources on building in areas that everyone agrees will be retained after the peace settlement.
One day these settlers, or their children , will fight with the army, look at those faces in the picture.
As long as Israel doesn’t demolish illegal Arab homes it is discrimination at its worst. Period. End of story.
the problem with # 3 a/k/a as “anonymous ” and those who follow that line of thinking is that you are misapplying problematic american standards of law to israeli-settlers
a/k/a the the real-jews . there is no such thing as ” unauthorized israeli west bank settlements ” . Every tiny grain of soil is holy eretz yisrael.no israeli government or official has the right to cede one grain of sand to the barbarians that surround us.
israel belongs to all the jewish people and no-one can give away that land.if you have
trouble understanding that concept then i suggest you google gush katif for further
understanding.you might also google arik sharon who ceded territory only to
become a vegetable himself and denied death (so far) because the ground of israel
refuses to accept him in a dignified jewish manner -kever yisrael-because of the
trajedy he initiated. So don’t look to give-up land -rather look to increase our lands to the full borders given us by the Torah.
Even in the time of the Torah there were non-Jews living in Israel. The Samaritans, Idumeans, Moabites, Philistines, etc. continued to live alongside the Jews, sometimes in peace, sometimes not. Are some people suggesting that it is now acceptable to take the property of non-Jews without compensation? What is your justification for this? You can’t justify this by saying that there are Arabs who hate us. If Jews were allowed to break laws because someone hates us, we would have no law at all.