Israeli politics rocked by 40 families on a hilltop
AMONA OUTPOST, Palestinian Territories: When a voice crackled from speakers on the cold and rainy West Bank hilltop finally announcing a deal, hundreds of young Jewish protesters who had camped out reluctantly started to leave.
The youths with dangling sidelocks and knitted skullcaps were suspending their campaign following Sunday’s agreement, but the power of their cause had already been made clear.
A long-running drama over the future of the small Jewish outpost of Amona in the occupied Palestinian territory, where the youths were protesting, has rocked Israeli politics and demonstrated the influence of the country’s farright.
Though only 40 families live in mainly caravan homes on the hilltop, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government found itself tied in knots over how to remove them before a courtordered Dec 25 deadline, resulting in Sunday’s deal.
The controversy has led to a wider debate over the future of the West Bank and of a two- state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, long the focus of peace efforts but a possibility many now see as fading.
Religious nationalists in Netanyahu’s coalition used Amona to push for the legalisation of several thousand other Israeli settler homes in the West Bank — a measure that may yet pass.
They also advanced their argument for what they would like to see happen over the longterm: Israel annexing most of the West Bank.
Some analysts see the argument as gaining more traction than ever, particularly with Donald Trump taking office as US president in January. — AFP