Friday, October 03, 2008
ISRAEL LAUNCHES OFFENSIVE AGAINST WEST BANK JEWS
Israeljustice.com
Date added: 10/2/2008
www.israeljustice.com/news2.asp?key=145

JERUSALEM -- The Israel Army has launched an offensive against Jewish
dissidents in the West Bank.
Military sources said the army's Central Command has been ordered to
dismantle unauthorized Jewish outposts and arrest organizers in the West
Bank. The sources said the military has assessed that Jewish opponents of
the government would try to accelerate construction and settlement amid the
expected departure of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"There has been a rise in Jewish violence in Judea and Samaria," Central
Command chief Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni said. "In the past, only a few dozen
individuals took part in such activity, but today that number has grown into
the hundreds. That's a very significant change."
On Oct. 2, the army destroyed the Jewish outpost of Shvut Ami near the
community of Kedumim and arrested several people. One of them was identified
as Daniella Weiss, the former mayor of Kedumim and a key anti-government
dissident.
"The resistance against army operations has turned violent, and we
cannot tolerate this," a military source said.
Weiss, arrested outside her home as she tried to stop authorities
stealing a car, was charged with attacking a police officer. She was held in
the Neve Tirza womens' prison along with another activist, Shosh Shilo. The
two women will be arraigned on Oct. 3 at the Kfar Saba Magistrates Court.
Land of Israel activists said they would not be daunted in their efforts
to settle the entire Land of Israel.
"The more they try to harass our members, the more our determination
will increase to establish new settlement points in Judea and Samaria and to
fight for the Land of Israel," activists said in a statement.
In August, Shamni ordered four Jewish West Bank residents, Elad Meir,
David Libman, Akiva HaCohen and Meir Bretler, expelled from their homes for
a period of three to four months, ostensibly to prevent them from
interfering with the Arab olive harvest.
"But the harvest hasn't yet begun," Libman said. "By the time we are
allowed to go home, the harvest will be just beginning."
Libman and Bretler, who said that police continue to harass them, were
arrested in late September as they travelled on roads that connect the West
Bank to the rest of Israel. Both were acquitted by magistrates of any crime
but both continued to refuse to sign a military travel ban issued by Shamni.
On Sept. 3, police stopped two busloads of people on their way to
protest against the expulsions outside Shamni's home. More than 50
demonstrators were arrested, including an 85 year-old journalist.
"The protestors stood outside the station, making noise, blowing
whistles and the like, protesting against our detention merely for wanting
to stand up for justice in this country," activist Nadia Matar, head of the
Women in Green organization, said. "Suddenly a whole bunch of policemen
swooped down on them very violently. One girl in particular was treated very
brutally. She was dragged with her arm behind her back, her shirt was pulled
down, and she cried out. We all started to surround the police officer who
was doing this, yelling at him to stop and suddenly the police officer
started hitting us and Daniella Weiss and the photographer Miriam Tzachi,
none of us young girls."
About 300,000 Jews live in the West Bank. The Olmert government has
agreed to cede virtually the entire West Bank as part of a peace agreement
with the Palestinian Authority.
"The majority of people here act normally," Shamni told the Israeli
daily Haaretz. "But what this bunch does is causing tremendous damage, both
to the image of the Israel Defense Forces and to the state of Israel. This
is harming our ability to carry out security missions in the territories."
The military has also restricted access to Jewish holy sites in the West
Bank. The sources said Central Command stopped giving permission to Jews to
visit Joseph's Tomb outside Nablus.