Israel Matzav

More violence coming in Judea and Samaria

Convicted sex offender Haim Ramon is Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert's good buddy and now carries the title of Vice Premier. Ramon has some very unusual ideas about how democracy is supposed to work. This is how he expressed them in a 1995 appearance on Nightline:

"Maybe we can reach a consensus on some issues. But at the end of the dialogue, if we will not reach an agreement, we must agree on the one most important principle -- that the majority will decide, a democratic majority, and everybody, everybody, will respect it. And that those that are not going to respect it, from now on, will be crushed."

Yesterday, Ramon decided to crush someone again. This time, it won't be a 21-year old female soldier. Instead, Ramon decided to expel some more Jews from their homes.

Ramon chairs the Prime Minister's committee on expelling Jews from 'unauthorized outposts,' many of which the government has actually authorized and sanctioned. Yesterday, Ramon's committee decided to expel Jews from twenty-six such locations throughout Judea and Samaria in the coming months and to give Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak the sole authority to decide when. In the meantime, the IDF is drawing up 'operational plans.' It does not sound pretty:

While the IDF predicts that the evacuation of 26 illegal West Bank outposts will be difficult and violent, the army is in the final stages of drawing up an operational plan that could be implemented within a matter of weeks after the government gives the green light, defense officials said Sunday.

The list includes outposts established since 2001, when former prime minister Ariel Sharon promised the US that he would evacuate the sites.

The list includes Avigail, Asael, Maon near Hebron, Pnei Adam in the Binyamin Region, Havat Gilad near Kedumim, Kida near Shevut Rachel, Ma'aleh Rehavam near Tekoa, and Migron, whose legal status is currently being determined by the High Court of Justice.

"There will be extreme violence," said a high-ranking defense official involved in planning the evacuations. "Once the evacuation date is determined by the political echelon, we could begin the evacuations in a matter of weeks."

So with the 'Palestinians' shooting rockets at Sderot daily, instead of sending the IDF into Gaza and putting a stop to the rocket fire, the government will once again deploy the army to expel Jews from their homes.

This time, they're trying to hide behind the Americans:

Defense officials said that one of the reasons behind the sudden activity on the outpost issue was relentless American pressure on the government to begin taking steps to remove the illegal communities.

According to officials, the Americans have been pressuring Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to evacuate the outposts since he took office last year.

If Olmert really didn't want to evacuate the 'outposts' he wouldn't have to. President Bush is a lame duck and the Congress is more pro-Israel than it has ever been. Let's face it folks, Olmert is evacuating 'outposts' because he wants to Aliza wants him to.

Meanwhile, Avigdor Lieberman, the reincarnation of Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party was elected by right wing voters who don't support the Olmert-Barak-Livni government, looks for yet another straw to grasp to keep his fat rear end in his ministerial position:

In an official letter written to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman demanded the establishment of a new committee to examine what he referred to as illegal Palestinian construction in Area C.

...

Lieberman such a committee should also be set up to examine the "illegal construction by Bedouins in the Negev and Israeli-Arabs in the Galilee region".

Lieberman's demand came just a few hours after Vice Premier Haim Ramon, chairman of the ministerial committee responsible for illegal outposts, determined that only the prime minister, defense minister (Ehud Barak) and the chief of staff have the authority to order the evacuation of 26 illegal West Bank outposts that were set up during former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's term in 2001.

"According to certain reports, Palestinian construction in Area C is far greater in scope than the unauthorized outposts, and especially worrying is the illegal building along bypass roads in the West Bank, which endangers the Jewish residents' lives," Lieberman's letter read.

...

Lieberman's aides said in a statement that the minister regrets the fact that those who wish to evacuate the outposts "are preoccupying themselves with an issue that pertains to Jews only while ignoring the war on terror which is a core issue that has not been dealt with.

"The minister does not want to harm the authority of the prime minister and the defense minister … He just wants to prevent another schism in the nation as was the case during the disengagement," they said.

Don't hold your breath waiting for this government to set up that kind of commission. It won't happen. And even if it does, the results of any investigation will never be implemented.

And don't hold your breath waiting for Netanyahu to lead rallies to bring down the government. That won't happen either. Netanyahu is waiting for Olmert to take the heat of giving the country away and then moving to France so that Netanyahu can take over as Prime Minister and be bound by the agreements into which Olmert has entered. Yasser Arafat used to call that 'plausible deniability.'

A shortened version of Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon's article from last week is in this morning's JPost. Whether he will actually challenge Netanyahu for the leadership position remains to be seen. But we are running out of options.

And we have no one on whom to rely except for Our Father in Heaven. Our 'leaders' have abandoned us.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:02 AM