Thousands of Police Carry Out Singing, Praying Protestors
When Eli Greenberg moved to the windy hilltop outpost of Amona in 2004, he never thought that Israeli police would one day come in to his home and force him and his eight children to leave. On Wednesday, he told his children, age 3 to 20, that the police were on their way.
“I told them to be brave, and that even if they break us, we will get back on our feet,” Greenberg told The Media Line as he waited for the police to come to his home. “Amona is the place that God gave Abraham the promise that he would inherit the holy land. I told them that we had God’s blessing to live here for 13 years and we should be grateful for every minute.”
There were scattered clashes as police moved house to house to evacuate members of the 40 families who live in Amona as well as about a thousand mostly teenage protestors who had come to the West Bank outpost to support the settlers here. Some of the protestors threw stones at police, and a few even threw glass bottles, paint and bleach. At least 16 policemen were wounded, and several protestors arrested.
“Police were attacked by anarchists with substances that were thrown on them and caused burning the eyes of a number of policemen who also required medical treatment at the scene. The Israel Police will not allow this and will act accordingly,” Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told The Media Line.
In many cases, the residents refused to leave, and four policemen were needed to carry each protestor. The police did not wear uniforms or helmets, just bright blue sweatshirts with “Police” written in Hebrew and English.
In most cases the police tried hard to calm tensions, reacting calmly to the singing and chanting of the protestors. Some of them, mostly teenage boys, lay on the floor, their arms linked to make it harder for the police to drag them away.
“Where is your heart? How can you do this? You can refuse. You will have to listen to your conscience,” one protestor yelled at the police.
“Please, we don’t want to have to drag you out,” the policemen said to the man, before lifting him off the ground.
The evacuation was ordered by the Supreme Court after the court ruled that at least part of the outpost was built on private Palestinian land. The Israeli government sought to move all 40 families to a nearby hilltop. That plan fell through when other Palestinians filed claims to the land there.
Many of the residents of Amona said they felt the government had betrayed them.
“The government made a promise to us and then reneged,” Eli Greenberg said. “Netanyahu could have gotten back up from Trump’s administration. In our time of need, our politicians were found to be low, immoral people.”
Just hours before the evacuation began, Israeli officials announced that 3000 new homes would be built elsewhere in the West Bank, and Israeli settler leaders vowed to build more and even to annex parts of the West Bank, that Palestinians say should be part of a Palestinian state.
“Out of the wreckage of Amona we will build children’s playgrounds throughout Judea and Samaria,” Education Minister Naftali Bennett said, using the Biblical term for the West Bank. “As a result of the legal defeat, we will impose new rules on Judea and Samaria and legalize all the communities.”
The Israeli parliament has already given preliminary approval to a bill that will retroactively approve 4000 housing units in the West Bank built in outposts like Amona. Palestinian officials have sharply attacked Israel and say it makes the two-state solution of an independent Palestinian state next to Israel impossible.
“Such a frenzied escalation of Israel’s illegal enterprise signals the final demise of the two-state solution,” PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement. “The silence of the new American government, including those who actively support the settlements in the White House and the administration as a whole, has emboldened Netanyahu to persist with his settlement activities. All settlements are a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and constitute a direct violation of international law and conventions, including UNSC resolution 2334.”
Eli Greenberg of Amona says he and his family will sleep in a youth hostel in the nearby settlement of Ofra for the next few day. After that, he says he has no idea where he will make his next home.