HEBRON DISPUTE
Netanyahu delays eviction of settlers from house.
JERUSALEM • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put off the prospect of an immediate eviction of Jewish settlers from a house in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, saying they should be given time to argue their legal case for tenancy, Israeli officials said Tuesday.
The settlers insist they purchased the property legally from its former owner, a Palestinian, but all such deals in the occupied West Bank require a special permit from the Israeli military authorities. A group of families entered the house several days ago without seeking the necessary approval, a process that can take weeks or months, according to Major Guy Inbar, a military spokesman. That, he said, made their presence in the house illegal.
The authorities issued an eviction order on Monday, and ministers and legislators from Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party lined up to support the settlers, who on Tuesday simply ignored a 3 p.m. deadline to leave voluntarily.
Under political pressure, and apparently seeking to avoid a violent confrontation between security forces and settlers, Mr. Netanyahu sought a way to hold off imminent action. Overnight, he asked his Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, to “give the settlers time to make their legal case,” according to Mark Regev, a spokesman for the prime minister.
Mr. Barak is ultimately responsible for settlement and security issues in the West Bank. His office said on Tuesday that the law would be enforced, but added that any eviction would be carried out according to “operational considerations,” leaving open the question of timing.
Later Tuesday, at a news conference marking the start of his fourth year in office, Mr. Netanyahu said that the fate of one house was at issue and that people should not extrapolate too much from it regarding policy on the expansion or contraction of Jewish settlements in Hebron. The government, he added, would act “responsibly.”
Hebron is a hotly contested city where several hundred Jewish settlers live among almost 200,000 Palestinians. The house in question is near the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives, the biblical matriarchs, are said to be buried. The site is revered by Muslims and Jews and has been fought over for centuries.
The Jewish settlement in Hebron is heavily protected by Israeli soldiers who severely restrict Palestinian movement through a core area of the city.
The contest over the house reflects the larger IsraeliPalestinian conflict over territory that Israel conquered in the 1967 war.
Ideological Israeli settlers consider the West Bank, particularly parts with religious significance such as Hebron, as their biblical birthright. Palestinians claim the area as part of a future state of their own.
The Israeli Transport Minister, Yisrael Katz, visited the house on Tuesday morning. “Jews have the right to buy houses all over the world, certainly in the land of Israel, and certainly in Hebron, the city of our forefathers,” he said, adding that a government led by the Likud “ought to be encour- aging settlement.”
The last eviction of a contested house in the city, in late 2008, produced ugly scenes of evacuees being dragged out and young settlers taking revenge by rampaging through Palestinian fields and neighbourhoods, setting olive trees ablaze and trashing houses.
Such property deals are murky by nature, involving straw companies and middlemen to obscure the identity of those behind the transactions, particularly the Palestinians, who stir the wrath of their people by selling to settlers. The Palestinian Mayor of Hebron, Khaled Osaily, told Israel’s Army Radio that the purchase papers were forged.