14 January 2013
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was clearly troubled by the establishment of Bab Al Shams, a
Palestinian protest village erected on privately-owned Palestinian land, the
planned route of what Israel calls the “E-1” corridor in the occupied
West Bank.
The E-1 area was to be capstone of Israel’s settler-colonial enterprise, a
long segment of housing units expanding east from the Jews-only mega-settlement
of Maale Adumim, permanently severing East Jerusalem from
the rest of the West Bank and virtually slicing the West Bank in half. And now,
400 Palestinians and their supporters stood directly in the way of the plan.....Forced evacuation
Two hours later some 500 border police troops in full riot gear marched into Bab Al Shams and carried its inhabitants away by force. According to reports from some of the 150 or activists inside, the police attacked journalists, pushing them to the periphery of the encampment so they could not record the brutality. Photos of those injured during the raid suggest that the police severely assaulted those who refused to leave quietly. Six Palestinians, including the artist and activist Hafez Omar (a photograph of injured Omar is circulating on Facebook), were so badly wounded they required treatment at the Ramallah Hospital.
Under pressure from right-wing upstarts amidst a heated election contest, Netanyahu ordered the eviction of Bab Al Shams in flagrant contempt of the country’s high court. And not one of the judges issued a word of protest. In a state guided not by the democratic rule of law, but by the colonial imperatives of the occupation, Netanyahu’s roguery was business as usual."
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