Hebron: Building crisis

Tensions are high in the West Bank city of Hebron as settlers brace for a potential confrontation with security forces, following an Israeli Supreme Court decision calling for their ouster from a strategically important building.  

The court ruled 16 November that the residents should leave the building, occupied by settler families in March 2007, within three days of the court order, a deadline that expired at noon on 19 November without subsequent action on the part of the authorities.

The building in question has been dubbed variously, the Brown House, Peace House or the House of Contention and opponents fear it could serve as the nucleus for a future settlement enclave.

Around 650 Jewish settlers live in heavily guarded compounds in the H2 sector of Hebron, with the city as a whole home to around 180,000 Palestinians, according to external page Haaretz.

As the court's deadline came and went, tensions spilled over into violence with settlers reportedly clashing with local Palestinians. An Israeli soldier was wounded when settlers doused turpentine on him as he sought to prevent them from throwing stones at Palestinians.

Settlers reportedly vandalized Israeli military and police vehicles along with a mosque and a Muslim cemetery in the disturbances, which may have been a bid to force the issue in light of the current buildup of supporters in the area; a buildup that will likely prove difficult to maintain if the crisis drags on.

"There were some instances when […] some of the people who came got a little out of hand and we've taken care of that," Hebron community spokesperson David Wilder told ISN Security Watch, blaming the rise in tensions on the government. He added that a decision had been made some time ago to keep protests peaceful.

Dodgy dealings?

In lengthy legal proceedings, settler representatives have sought to focus the attention of the courts on the issue of ownership of the building, holding that an audio tape and supporting documentary evidence demonstrated their legal title.

Wilder argues that, "The Supreme Court ruling is first and foremost political. It has nothing to do with justice. We presented enough evidence to the courts that any court in the world would accept as proof of purchase and they refused to relate to it."

However, significant questions are being asked concerning the authenticity of documents submitted by Hebron legal representatives as demonstration of title, some of which were characterized as forgeries by the state prosecution in the Supreme Court trial.

The company involved in facilitating the purchase, Tal Investments and Construction Ltd, is reportedly being investigated by police in relation to possible instances of fraud and forgeries in previous purchases, Peace Now Settlement Watch Director Hagit Ofran told ISN Security Watch.

"It is owned by the settlers and it is the third time in Hebron […] in the last four years that they have claimed to buy or rent houses and they [the authorities] found forging of documents," she said, referring to the company.

Asked what he knew of the company, Yesh Din land project coordinator Dror Etkes told ISN Security Watch: "One of the owners is Moshe Zar, from the northern part of the West Bank. He is known as a land merchant and [is] very, very zealous politically speaking, very, very extreme."

Moshe Zar was reportedly the driver in a "Jewish Underground" bombing in 1980 in which then-Nablus mayor Bassam Shak'a lost both his legs. His son Gilad was killed in a militant attack in 2001, while Zar himself has survived an ax attack and is understood to have been deeply involved in supporting the Hebron Jewish community.

Importantly, the issue of who holds title to the property was not the sole focus of the Supreme Court decision, which effectively confirmed the right of authorities to block land and property sales in the West Bank in an effort to prevent private settlement construction. Ofran says the residents only sought sanction of the building purchase after occupying it.

"We have a law that says that if you buy a house in the Occupied Territories you need to have the confirmation of the minister of defense […] This confirmation was denied because the then-minister of defense [Amir Peretz] said, 'We are not interested in building another settlement in Hebron,'" she noted.

Strategic point

Asked why the building is important to the Hebron Jewish community Wilder said, "This particular building is quite large. It's between 35,000-40,000 square feet. There are four floors. It is a very strategic site sitting above the road on which we drive from Hebron to Kiryat Arba, Kiryat Arba to Hebron; it overlooks much of the area.

"The IDF [Israeli Defense Force] has seen this as a very strategic site," he said, adding, "When we moved in two years ago the military commander […] was very pleased that we purchased the building."

The establishment of a settlement nucleus on the route provides an important initial step in developing territorial contiguity between Kiryat Arba and Hebron settlement enclaves. If achieved, this contiguous settlement pattern would make it considerably harder for future Israeli governments to entertain the forced evacuation of Hebron.

Past instances of settlement expansion in the city have reportedly led to the flight of local Palestinian residents and businesses from their immediate surroundings.

Referring specifically to the building at issue, according to Ofran, "The outcome of this settlement was that all of the surrounding area became like hostages under the governance of the settlers and the army. Because in order to protect the settlers, the army closed down some of the roads around it and checks every person who passes by and the Palestinian neighbors became subject to attacks all the time."

Politicization

The court's decision comes at a key time both for the political representatives of the settler community and the wider Israeli political system, with campaigning underway ahead of parliamentary elections in February.

Despite a series of minor settlement outpost evacuations, there has been little concrete action on the part of the outgoing Ehud Olmert government to force a confrontation with the settlers over the outposts issue. Meanwhile, settlement construction has continued apace in "recognized" settlements in the wake of the Annapolis conference, according to external page Peace Now.

The abiding sense in Israel is that the Greater Israel debate has been effectively won by the center-left, a fact that has contributed to a widespread lack of interest in relevant political and diplomatic initiatives and has sparked fears of a fundamental break between national-religious supporters of the settlement enterprise and the state.

The creation of Kadima and its steady usurpation of the Labor party's traditional policy platform on issues of war and peace are drawing the Likud further toward the political center while contributing to the isolation of the hard right and disintegration of Labor.

Desperate for an issue on which to define his leadership and secure the future of his listing party, Labor's leader, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, may ultimately be tempted to allow a confrontation with the settlement movement over the Hebron building.

This would play well with Labor's base constituency and could act to stem the steady erosion of party support to both Kadima and a nascent Zionist left wing movement (currently unnamed) that has already attracted some prominent Labor peaceniks.

Barak has largely kept his powder dry on the issue, asking settlers to respect the Supreme Court's decision, but with polls showing Labor's support having plummeted to a disastrous 8-10 seats he would appear to have little to lose through an escalation of the Hebron confrontation.

"I think the government has the motivation to do something now because it is popular," Ofran said, referring to a potential evacuation.

"The settlers started to be a threat to the IDF, and as a threat to the IDF it is something that suddenly it is important [to the Israeli public]," she said, adding, "When it comes to our soldiers, Ehud Barak will be very much against it."  

According to Wilder, "Barak, who probably will have to make the final decision, will not be basing his decision on the legalities, rather the politics of it."

Far-right bind

The recent creation of a united far-right political entity, the National Union-National Religious Party, merging a number of hard-line secular and national-religious movements, is a further sign of the collapse of authority of the traditional settler leadership in the wake of the 2005 Gaza withdrawal and destruction of northern West Bank settlements.

The new party is caught between a rock and a hard place. It may prove impolitic to provide open backing to the Hebron protestors, in violation of state injunctions and in light of open calls for the severing of relations with the state from fringe settler elements, but the party has little choice but to rally to the residents' cause.

Politically the Hebron issue is poison for the party. Its involvement is likely to discourage the Sephardi working class and moderate rightist national-religious supporters from supporting the new list, severely undermining the role of the new party as a major player in a possible Likud-led government.

Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu will not be throwing the far-right any lifelines and will be seeking to stay above the fray on the Hebron issue, given popular disaffection with settler extremism and the hard-right's role in forcing his ouster as prime minister in 1999.

The Jewish community in Hebron appears to be hoping that the evacuation can be delayed in lieu of a potential right-wing victory at the polls.

"We are investigating other possibilities both within the legal and political system to try to find a way to resolve this [building issue] and have them [authorities], at the very least, postpone any decision till after the elections," Wilder said.

Prospects

The evacuation of residents from the contested building remains attendant on further government decisions. The Defense Ministry has pledged to end the occupation of the building without force and appears unwilling to spark a full-scale confrontation at this point.

Asked if she was confident the authorities would act to remove the settlers from the building, Ofran said, "No. We don't know when and if [they will], because there are so many demolition orders and evacuation orders in the West Bank and they are not being dealt with at all. So I am not excited about this new decision of the court."

Government legal aides were seeking wiggle-room Wednesday, arguing that a forced evacuation of the building did not have to happen within a month of the court order, given that the time that has passed since settlers initially took up residence means the situation does not equate to a "new" illegal occupation.

This resort to pedantic semantics underlines the existence of competing tendencies within the outgoing government, relevant ministries and the military, some of which appear to have provided considerable support to ongoing settlement construction through the course of the Olmert administration.

Talks between the police and settlement leaders are reportedly planned in order to reach an agreement on a peaceful evacuation, but the prospects for this appear slim given the symbolic importance attached to the building by elements of the settlement movement.

Wilder is adamant that a voluntary evacuation is not on the cards: "If they want to speak with us then we will think about whether there is anything to speak to them about, but we have no intentions of leaving."