Olmert Regime: Lies, Deceptions of and ‘Seleksia’ on Jews of Yehuda, Shomron; Plea to President Katsav for Gov’t Honesty, Restoration of Trust …

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State Fosters Settler Mistrust

Excerpts;

Incredibly, the current Israeli leadership seems to be purposely fostering mistrust between the state and Israeli settlers in Judea and Samaria, making the likelihood of bloodshed the next time Prime Minister Ehud Olmert moves to uproot a Jewish community dangerously high.

Just days before the brutal destruction of the Amona outpost in Binyamin two months ago, the IDF succeeded in reaching a compromise deal with the Jews of Hebron regarding their removal from homes in an old vegetable market on the outskirts of the Avraham Avinu neighborhood.

Many expected the Hebron face-off to also end in violence, but, relying on the High Court’s previous ruling that the property in question was indeed Jewish-owned, the settlers reached an agreement with the authorities whereby they would voluntarily vacate the premises and return at a later date with full government approval.

A Knesset inquiry last month into the violence at Amona scolded the Olmert government in its intermediate report for not following a similar process in that instance:

“The compromise reached a short time before [Amona] concerning the eviction of Jews from the wholesale market in Hebron, implicitly supports the idea that the two sides, the government and the settlers, acted in good faith with the intentions of reaching an agreement acceptable to both sides.”

Olmert and his circle were accused of actually desiring a confrontation at Amona in order to stir up negative feelings against the settlers and bolster support for his withdrawal plan.

A Letter From a “Settler” “”Outside” Ehud Olmert’s “Green Line”

Excerpts;

They have piles of tags that the government wishes to force us to place on our cars to separate us from the rest of the citizens of Israel. Our security officers have refused to pick them up from the Central command Headquarters where they are waiting for us. We, who pay taxes, serve in the army and fight for our country are to be deported exiled from our homes, G-d forbid.

My community is like the Warsaw ghetto with an 8-meter wall around us and Ramalla Betunia over us. HaShem yaazor (May G-d help us).

We are literally fighting two fronts – the one the enemy outside that wishes to destroy us and the other – the government army police, courts and media who wish to destroy us from inside. I had such nightmares last night again about my son, Yaacov, in the tank corps. I can’t begin to tell you.

As part of this report, this author received an email from “Cities of Israel” (Mattot Arim) with a plea to contact President Katsav and American Jewish leaders to press the Regime to honor it’s committments.

This author sent President Katsav the following email;

Dear President Katsav;

I received this email this morning and believe that it is compelling for you to act, on behalf of the residents of Shalhevet neighborhood of Chevron who have been cheated and snookered by Attorney General Mazuz, the IDF and the Government of Israel. A relationship of trust between the Government of israel and its citizenry must be restored. Agreements can’t be reneged upon at will.

Israel’s Attorney-General: Yearning for Confrontation

Remember the pools of blood at Amona — all due to nine Jewish homes in the middle of nowhere which allegedly had not been “authorized” by the appropriate paper-pushers? To remind you, here are excerpts from the LA Times:

“The clashes, which injured more than 200 people, including two members of the Israeli parliament, were covered live on local television for hours. By afternoon, authorities … smashed the houses with tractors….Helmeted officers, aided by front-end loaders and ladders, stormed atop the homes and were seen clubbing the holdouts in a show of force …In a sign of the government’s resolve, about 6,000 soldiers and police took part in the evacuation…The scene at times resembled a miniature battlefield, with the injured being carried one after another in stretchers, bloodied and bandaged. A patch of gravel near the row of stone-sided homes became a makeshift triage center, where medics treated the injured on sheets of cardboard that bore pools of blood.”

Unfortunately, it seems as though Israel’s Attorney General is doing everything possible to repeat this confrontation – -this time in Hebron. Here are the particulars:

At the very same time, some weeks ago, that Amona was deteriorating into blood-soaked civil strife despite pleas to Israel’s government at the highest levels, a similar situation in Hebron was being quietly diffused by a no-nonsense IDF commander, Yair Golan. The bone of contention was Hebron’s Shalhevette Neighborhood, built on Jewish land adjacent the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the aftermath of a fatal terror attack on an infant victim, 10 month old Shalhevette, the anniversary of whose death occurred this week. Golan managed to negotiate an agreement with the embittered, long-suffering members of the Jewish community of Hebron according to which the residents of the neighborhood which desparately needed yet another permit, would briefly vacate their homes so as not to embarrass the politically powerful radical left, however, they would then be allowed, by mutual consent, to return home, this time with all necessary permits. An agreement to this effect was duly drawn up between the Jewish Community of Hebron and the IDF. The Jewish residents of the Shalhevet neighborhood, wary and distrustful but true to their word, dutifully packed up their (large) families and moved temporarily into the homes of neighbors and relatives.

But their aquiescence was not reciprocated by the State of Israel. Initially, Attorney-General Mazuz, goaded by the Left, simply insisted that no such agreement existed. This claim was not borne out by the facts, and therefore, this week, Mazuz, under tremendous pressure from powerful and well-funded figures on the left, “cancelled” the agreement. Of course, this is not a step that he is legally authorized to take, since the sovereign entity in the area is actually the IDF commander , and most certainly not Mazuz, but that really does not matter, because in today’s Israel, no court would ever dream of stepping forward and helping Yesha Jews to prevail over the all powerful Mazuz .

So, what can be done to persuade Mazuz to allow a handful of families to finally, legally, peaceably return to their homes in the cradle of the Jewish people? Are we destined to see in Hebron a re-run of the Amona pogrom?

Mr. President, please don’t be silent. We look to you as a starting point for integrity and trust in government. Please don’t let us down!

Sincerely,

Moshe Burt
Ramat Beit Shemesh

Please: Don’t remain silent. Ask Israel’s President Katzav to deal with the problem (forward this email to him!). There must be a relationship of trust between a state and its citizenry. Agreements can’t be reneged upon at will.

Kindly forward copies of your correspondence (and any replies) to office2@Hebron.org.il .