Israel Passes the 'Regularisation' Law - its like having a law to compensate the burglar who enters your home

Pity the Poor, Distressed Zionist Land Thief

Imagine a law in Britain which is specifically designed to legalise squatting on other peoples’ land.  Not only would this be impossible, in fact the opposite occurred under the last government.  The actions of the homeless have increasingly been criminalised, even when they take over empty housing that rich people have decided to keep empty for reasons of making a profit.

The settlement of Amona

Settlers like Education Minister, Naftali Bennett were not homeless.  Bennett came as a rich businessman from Brooklyn, New York.  He and thousands of others are ideological squatters.  They believe they are fulfilling god’s commandments to steal the land of others.  Unlike in Britain they are backed by the force of the State.

Jewish settlers have squatted in their thousands on private Palestinian land [i.e. land which the State has not confiscated under one pretext or another] to which they have no entitlement. 

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit attends a ceremony in Jerusalem, June 13, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Instead of evicting them, as would happen if Palestinians in Israel did the same, the Knesset recently passed a ‘Regularisation Law’ which regularised the position of the land thieves.  It retrospectively legalised the theft of private Palestinian land in the West Bank.  Even the Attorney General, Avichai Mendelblit, a member of Likud, refused to support it describing it as unconstitutional but Netanyahu and his far-Right government proceeded regardless.  After all this is what settler colonialism has always done.

The Jewish settlers believe that god gave them the land, on the basis that their ancestors, completely mythical creatures, apparently lived there a few thousand years ago.  Imagine if the whole world were ordered on this basis!  In reality the settlers are doing no more than colonists have always done in places like Southern Africa.  Using the Bible to justify their expropriation of the land of the indigenous people.

See also the excellent article by Gideon Levy Oh Merciful God, Show Some [Mercy] to Victims

Tony Greenstein

The Israeli settlement of Almon in the occupied West Bank. Credit Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

Israeli ‘Regularisation Law’ is Designed to Protect those who steal Palestinian land

Israel to High Court: Law Seizing Palestinian Land Is Humane Response to 'Distress' of Thousands of Settlers

Private lawyer representing the state says expropriation of Palestinian lands in West Bank is constitutional under both Israeli and international law

Yotam Berger 22.08.2017 12:17 Updated: 12:18 PM

The unauthorized outpost of Mitzpeh Kramim. Israel says the expropriation law would help residents there with construction. Michal Fattal

The state on Monday asked the High Court of Justice to reject legal challenges to a controversial law that would allow for the retroactive expropriation of land owned by Palestinians in West Bank settlements. It called the law “a humane, proportional and reasonable response to the genuine distress of Israeli residents.”

In seeking to persuade the court to reject the legal challenges – filed by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations – the state argued that the “practical alternative” to the law is the maintenance of the existing situation, which the state said is disruptive to the lives of “hundreds of families” in settlements, including families who built homes based on representations by government authorities that it was permissible.

The state added that the law is constitutional under Israeli law and also meets the requirements of international law.

Amona settlers building

Subject to specific provisions, the law allows Jewish settlers to remain in homes built on privately owned Palestinian land, even though it does not grant them ownership of the land. It also denies the Palestinian owners the right to claim the land or take possession of it “until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories.”

The state’s response was prepared by Harel Arnon, a private lawyer retained by the government after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit refused to represent it, saying the legislation was not constitutional. Prior to its passage, he also tried to halt the legislative process.

Implementation of the law had been informally suspended following the legal challenge. However, at Mendelblit’s request, the court made the suspension official on Monday through a court order. This will remain in effect until the court makes its ruling.

Bennett shakes hands with Zeev Elkin

 The law also provides a mechanism for compensating Palestinians whose lands are seized: A landowner can receive an annual usage payment of 125 percent of the land’s value as determined by an assessment committee, or an alternate plot of land if this is possible – whichever the Palestinian landowner chooses.

The state said the law addressed “a reality in which the owners of the land are not benefiting from their rights, particularly a reality that time after time has been polarizing and tearing Israeli society apart, and severely harming public trust and institutions of government.”

The state called the current situation “a national problem.”

It also noted a number of cases in which it said residents would benefit from the law if it is found constitutional, including construction at the unauthorized outpost of Mitzpeh Kramim and a number of buildings in the settlement of Ofra.

Demolition of Amona

The state’s response included data from the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank, detailing the numbers of orders issued against illegal settlement construction on privately owned Palestinian land.

It said that between 2012 and 2016, orders were issued against 285 illegally built structures; between 2007 and 2011, orders were issued in connection with 251 structures; and between 2002 and 2006, more than 450 orders were issued. Between 1992 and 1996, however, the figure was only 20.

In conclusion, the state said that although there are many issues that prompted the legal challenges to the law requiring thorough consideration, ultimately the petitioners are making “much ado about nothing.”

The law, the state said, does not run counter to any precedent or legal principle, and instead is meant to deal with a unique and complex situation that at times has led to demolitions that benefited no one – a situation that places hundreds of families under “a cloud of uncertainty.”

In response, the organizations Yesh Din, Peace Now and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel – which are some of the petitioners in the case – responded: “The State of Israel, in its response today, is trying to present the land expropriation law as addressing a national problem, when in practice it involves continued government support for a criminal enterprise that has continued for decades.

“The government is minimizing the continuing harm to the rights of the Palestinian landowners, and at the same time is trying to present the Israeli citizens who are taking part in the looting of West Bank Palestinians as people who have been harmed and who require ‘compensation’ for their part in the looting,” they added. “We hope the court rejects the state’s arguments out of hand, strikes down this unconstitutional and immoral law, and sends a loud and clear message: No more.”

Yotam Berger

Haaretz Correspondent

State says outpost legalization law protects Palestinians

Responding to petition from left-wing NGOs, government insists preventing additional outpost evacuations is in Israel’s ‘national interest’

In its official response Thursday to a High Court of Justice petition against a new law to legalize wildcat West Bank outposts, the state argued that the legislation, if implemented, would benefit Palestinians.

Private attorney Harel Arnon crafted the response on behalf of the state after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit refused to defend the legislation. In his 156-page response, Arnon wrote that the law will ensure just compensation for Palestinian landowners who would otherwise receive the death penalty from the Palestinian Authority for selling their land to Jews.

“The law even improves the situation of landowners, who will receive significant compensation for the use of their land — an option denied to them without the law,” Arnon wrote on behalf of the state.
The response also rejected claims that the legislation violates Israeli and international law. Arnon argued that it was in Israel’s “national interest” to prevent the evacuation of the some 4,000 homes that the law would legalize retroactively.

Defense Ministry dismantling Amona outpost in the central West Bank on February 6, 2017. (Courtesy Amona Council)

“The Regulation Law balances the obligation of the government towards thousands of citizens who have relied in good faith on government action and a minor infringement of property rights, with increased compensation to the landowners,” the state concluded.

Passed over six months ago, the Regulation Law allows the Israeli government to expropriate private Palestinian land where illegal outpost homes have been built ex post facto, provided that the outposts were “built in good faith” or had government support.

In return, the legislation states, the Palestinian landowners will be compensated financially or with other land.

The passage of the bill, originally meant to save the since-razed outpost of Amona, was roundly condemned by a slew of activists and political figures in Israel and abroad.

Its legality was immediately challenged in a High Court petition from left-wing NGOs Peace Now, Yesh Din and ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel) on behalf of 27 Palestinian local councils and 13 Israeli civil society organizations.

Regardless of the petition, the law was supposed to have gone into effect last week. However, at the behest of Mandelblit, the High Court ruled Thursday to freeze its implementation for two months.

Jewish Home chair Naftali Bennett (R) shakes hands with Minister for Jerusalem Affiars Zeev Elkin after a vote on the so-called Regulation Bill, a controversial bill that seeks to legitimize illegal West Bank outposts, December 7, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Consequently, no additional land will be expropriated even if it fits the above conditions. At the same time, outposts found to have been built in good faith or with government backing will not be demolished until a final decision is made.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked echoed state’s response to the High Court petition in a Monday statement praising the legislation. “The law offers a counter to the racism of the Palestinian Authority, which places the death penalty on those who sell land to Jews,” she said

But the left-wing NGOs behind the High Court challenge said the government’s response was an attempt to cover for a “criminal enterprise.”

“The Israeli government’s response seeks to present the expropriation law as a solution for a national problem, while the real problem is the state’s involvement in illegal settlement activity for the past five decades,” they said in a joint statement.

The court is now set to hear a response from the Knesset’s legal adviser in mid-September, followed by what is expected to be an unprecedented challenge to the law from Mandelblit himself in October.

In the months leading up to the February 6 Knesset vote on the Regulation Law, Mandelblit warned that the legislation bypassed standard land regulation procedures in the West Bank and that it legalized Israeli settlements built on private Palestinian land in breach of local and international law.

Mandelblit also cautioned that the legislation openly curtailed property rights of Palestinians in the West Bank in a way that contravenes the protections granted to occupied populations under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

When the Knesset passed the law anyway, Mandelblit officially notified the High Court that he would not defend the legislation if it was challenged. Arnon was subsequently chosen to represent the state in Mandeblit’s stead.

In May, Haaretz revealed that Arnon’s own home in the Elazar settlement is being built illegally on land that had been designated strictly for military purposes.

Revealed: Nearly 3,500 Settlement Homes Built on Private Palestinian Land

These illegal structures could be legalized under Israel's contentious 'land-grab' law, whose validity is now being determined by the High Court of Justice

Yotam Berger Aug 23, 2017 9:01 AM 

Settlers build in the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona, since evacuated by Israel. Emil Salman

There are 3,455 residential and public buildings built on private Palestinian lands in the West Bank, according to Civil Administration data. These illegal structures could be legalized under the expropriation law, whose validity is now being determined by the High Court of Justice in response to Palestinian petitions against the law.

Extensive details on the scope of illegal structures on private Palestinian land were revealed in an appendix to the state’s response to the petitions.

The law allows the state to expropriate Palestinian lands on which settlements or outposts were built “in good faith or at the state’s instruction,” and deny its owners the right to use those lands until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories. The measure provides a mechanism for compensating Palestinians whose lands are seized.

According to the Civil Administration, the 3,455 structures fall into three categories. The first includes 1,285 structures that are clearly private land. These are structures built during the past 20 years on land that was never defined as state land and all have had demolition orders issued against them. The second category comprises 1,048 structures that were built on private land that had earlier been erroneously designated state land. The third category contains 1,122 structures that were built more than 20 years ago, during a period when planning laws were barely enforced in the West Bank.

The structures on clearly private land are within the jurisdictions or adjacent to the jurisdictions of 74 settlements throughout the West Bank. Of these, 874 are in outposts – small, illegal satellites of larger settlements. One example would be the Tzur Shalem outpost near Karmei Tzur in the Etzion Bloc. Amona, which was evacuated in February, was another example. The other 411 are individual structures that were built on enclaves of private land within various legal settlements that were planned in accordance with Israeli law.

Israel just passed the land-grabbing law. What is it all about?

Of the 1,285 structures built on clearly private land, 543 are built on what the Civil Administration calls “regularized private land,” meaning lands whose owners are known and whose ownership is formally registered. The other homes are built on lands recognized as private after aerial photos proved that these lands had been cultivated over the years, but there is no definitive registry of who was cultivating them. Cultivating land establishes ownership in the West Bank in accordance with the Ottoman-era laws that still prevail there.

According to Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur, an expert on property rights at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, “Regularized land is land for which there is clear land registration, whether performed under Jordanian rule or during the Mandate period. The land at Amona was regularized land. In these cases there is no doubt about the rights because the registration invalidates any competing right and there’s no such thing as a statue of limitations on registered land. Non-regularized land can be unregistered but known to be privately owned, or registered but in a registry that doesn’t have the same strong evidentiary power.”

The second category includes structures built on lands that had been erroneously declared state land. Because the original declarations of state land were based on obsolete surveying technology, when the technology improved, errors were discovered and lands were removed from the state land listings. As a result, 1,048 structures suddenly found themselves outside the “blue line” that demarcates state lands. Of these, 799 structures are in areas that had a valid master plan and were thus planned and built based on the earlier declarations. Of this subcategory, 303 buildings are in the ultra-Orthodox city of Modi’in Ilit.

The third category of structures were built on private lands, with the Civil Administration admitting that in most cases the owners of the lands are known. These structures, however, were built more than 20 years ago, during a period when there was almost no oversight regarding construction on private Palestinian land. Until 1998, the policy was to conduct virtually no enforcement actions in the settlements. Of these 1,122 structures, 480 are in Ofra, 193 are in Beit El, and 146 are in Elon Moreh. Dozens of other such homes were built in Eli, Shavei Shomron, Psagot, Ma’aleh Michmash and Hermesh.

All told, of the 3,455 structures built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank, 1,576 (around 45 percent) were built on regularized private land and the rest on private land whose owners are not confirmed. This number includes residential structures and public buildings, mobile and permanent alike, but doesn’t include other types of structures like storage rooms, fences, roads and infrastructures that were built on private land.

The Civil Administration data is similar to the numbers that appeared in a recent Peace Now report, which estimated that the expropriation law could legalize up to 4,000 housing units in the settlements and outposts. Outposts that could be legalized included Avigail, Ahuzat Shalhevet, Beit El East, Bat Ayin West, Jebal Artis, Hill 725, Givat Assaf and more. The report noted that numerous homes could also be legalized in Oranit, Asfar, Beit El, Givat Ze’ev, Gitit, Har Gilo and others.

The Civil Administration appendix also details how many demolition orders were issued against illegal structures in the settlements. Between 2012 and 2016 there were 285 orders issued; between 2007 and 2011 – 251; from 2002 to 2006 – 451; between 1997 and 2001 – 278 orders and between 1992 and 1996 only 20 demolition orders were issued.

Yotam Berger

Haaretz Correspondent

Because he is Jewish, Israel’s Nazi –like Deputy Speaker, Bezalel Smotrich, will not be removed from the Knesset

MK Bezalel Smotrich at the Knesset, December 2016. Emil Salman

Bezalel Smotrich is, even in Zionist or Israeli terms, a bigot, but in Israel being an anti-Arab bigot is no great matter.  The fact that he is also a Jewish Nazi is of no relevance.  In July last year, the Knesset passed legislation, The Expulsion Law [see After Stormy Debate, Knesset Approves Law Allowing Ouster of Lawmakers] which allowed for the expulsion of members who are guilty of incitement to racism.  However although the legislation does not say so, it is clearly understood that the law only applies to Arabs.  That is also understandable – Israel is after all a Jewish state.

Smotrich's beast parade

As the article below explains, Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the Habayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) party, which is a member of the governing coalition, has a long record.  From organising a ‘beast parade’ of donkeys and other animals, as a parody of Jerusalem’s Gay Pride demonstration to supporting the present practice in Israeli hospitals that Jewish women have the right to a maternity ward that doesn’t contain Arabs.’ 'Israeli maternity wards segregate Jewish, Arab mothers'

Of course you have to understand that his wife ‘“is truly no racist, but after giving birth she wants to rest rather than have a hafla” — a mass feast often accompanied by music and dancing — “like the Arabs have after their births.” He went on to say that “It’s natural that my wife wouldn’t want to lie down [in a bed] next to a woman who just gave birth to a baby who might want to murder her baby twenty years from now.” adding that “Arabs are my enemies and that’s why I don’t enjoy being next to them.”

Smotrich at the illegal Amona outpost

Smotrich’s non-racist wife (because Zionists have a different definition of racism from most normal human beings) ‘Revital, later told Channel 10 that she had “kicked an Arab obstetrician out of the [delivery] room. I want Jewish hands to touch my baby, and I wasn’t comfortable lying in the same room with an Arab woman.” Lawmaker backs segregated Jewish, Arab maternity wards

Fortunately Bezalel’s remarks are not according to Israel’s anti-racism laws racist because all discrimination on the grounds of religion is automatically not racist!  Except when it comes to Arabs.

However Smotrich has outdone himself with his latest remarks calling for the lessons of Joshua (the wiping out of the inhabitants of Jericho, yea even including their children) to be applied to the Palestinians of the West Bank.  However, as in the case of his aforementioned remarks, there is nothing illegal about them, even though he is advocating what the Nazis did to the Jews because they too are based on religion.

Of course there are some people in Britain, not least the Labour Party, who believe that any 

comparisons between Israel, Zionism and the Nazis is anti-Semitic.  Indeed the new International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism defines comparisons between Israel and the Nazis as anti-Semitic.

The Zionists beginning with Herzl have been hostile to Armenian attempts to remember their holocaust

Shami Chakrabarti, in her Report on Racism and Anti-Semitism demonstrated that she didn’t have a clue as to why people compare Israel’s actions with the Nazis.  Clue:  Israel bases its legitimacy on the Holocaust and accuses its opponents variously of anti-Semitism, being Nazis, Kapos, traitors etc. despite the fact that Israel, as an ethno-religious state bars an uncanny similarity to Nazi Germany prior to 1941.

In day -to-day political debate, it is always incendiary to compare the actions of Jewish people or  ins titutions anywhere in the world to those of Hitler or the Nazis or to the perpetration of the Holocaust. Indeed such remarks can only be intended to be incendiary rather  than persuasive.  

According to Chakrabarti’s idiotic recommendation as to what constitutes anti-Semitism and the IHRAA definition of anti-Semitism, Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper and Professor Blatman who wrote the article are guilty of ‘anti-Semitism’.

Of course in the real world most people will understand that advocating the genocide of an ethnic group or people is, almost by definition, Nazi like and those who tolerate such racism, which is what the Israeli government and the Labour Zionist opposition are equally guilty of is complicity in Nazi-like behaviour

Those who, like the Jewish Labour Movement and Israel’s emissary in the Labour Party, Jeremy Newmark, cry ‘anti-Semitism’ whenever Israel is criticised, are guilty of complicity in the Nazi like behaviour of the Bezalel Smotrichs of this world.

Tony Greenstein

The Israeli Lawmaker Heralding Genocide Against Palestinians

Deputy Speaker Bezalel Smotrich's admiration for the biblical genocidaire Joshua bin Nun leads him to adopt values that resemble those of the German SS

Daniel Blatman May 23, 2017 9:28 AM

Tomer Persico quoted remarks that MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) made recently at a conference of religious Zionists, where he presented his plan to offer the Palestinians three options: leave the territories, continue to live there with second-class status, or continue resisting, in which case “the Israel Defense Forces will know what to do.” These are chilling words that are liable to lead Israel into committing the horrific crime of genocide.

It’s hard to believe that an elected representative of a party in the governing coalition could raise the option of genocide if the Palestinians don’t accept the terms he’s willing to offer them: either emigration, or life under an apartheid regime based on principles of Jewish law, which would be even worse than the one that existed in South Africa. Smotrich, a deputy speaker of the Knesset, is the most senior government figure to date to say unabashedly that the option of genocide is on the table if the Palestinians don’t agree to our terms – and it’s clear they won’t agree.

Smotrich relies on the biblical Book of Joshua as his model. Researchers of genocide in the ancient world have already determined that the Book of Joshua is an important document for examining the characteristics of genocide in the ancient world. Some of its components differed from the genocides of the 20th century, but the Book of Joshua describes actions that were explicitly defined as genocide in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The convention defines anyone who commits such acts as someone who committed crimes against humanity and must therefore be put on trial.

This is how the Book of Joshua describes the conquest of the city of Ai (Joshua 8:24-29): “And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, even in the wilderness wherein they pursued them, and they were all fallen by the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all Israel returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. ... So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, unto this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until the eventide; and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they took his carcass down from the tree, and cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raised thereon a great heap of stones, unto this day.”

The 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, an atrocity slightly less terrible than the biblical one, was defined as genocide by the United Nations. Article 2 of the genocide convention states that “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These acts include “killing members of the group”; “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”; “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

Had the conquest of Ai taken place today, Joshua bin Nun would have been brought to court in handcuffs and tried on charges of genocide. And that’s Smotrich’s model.

Article 3 of the convention states that punishable actions related to genocide include genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” and “complicity in genocide.” It would be interesting to hear what an expert in international law would say about Smotrich’s remarks.

Smotrich’s admiration for the biblical genocidaire Joshua bin Nun leads him to adopt values that resemble those of the German SS. Naturally, he didn’t take the trouble to make such comparisons, since someone who supports genocide doesn’t try to understand the worldview of the genocidaires who preceded him.

From God's mouth to Himmler's ears

Smotrich's hero, Heinrich Himmler with Reynhardt Heydrich

This is how God explains to Joshua why Israel was defeated in one of its battles against the enemy (Joshua 7:11-12): “Israel hath sinned; yea, they have even transgressed My covenant which I commanded them; yea, they have even taken of the devoted thing; and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have even put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel cannot stand before their enemies, they turn their backs before their enemies, because they are become accursed; I will not be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.”

Or in other words, conquest and annihilation must be carried out according to precise instructions from God. When Israel violates these instructions by seizing property and looting without permission, they are punished.

The similarity between the biblical text and what Heinrich Himmler said to senior SS officers in Poznan in October 1943 is chilling. Here is what Himmler said: “I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. ... The wealth they possessed we took from them. I gave a strict order ... that this wealth will of course be turned over to the Reich in its entirety. We have taken none of it for ourselves. Individuals who have erred will be punished in accordance with the order given by me at the start, threatening that anyone who takes as much as a single Mark of this money is a dead man.”

In every genocide, the supreme authority insists on order and discipline from those responsible for carrying it out, in accordance with criteria which he sets. Members of the SS were convinced they were men of integrity, with clean hands, who didn’t loot their victims’ property. Does Smotrich believe the ethics of the Book of Joshua could serve as an example for how the Palestinians should be treated today?

Smotrich has a reputation as a racist and a homophobe. Now it turns out that he also potentially supports mass murder. In any enlightened society, one can find people like this in dubious pubs, in Munich or Mississippi, that are frequented by skinheads tattooed with swastikas. But in Israel, the person saying this is a representative of the state.

One obviously can’t expect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do anything about this. But the real danger to Israel comes from the hundreds of Knesset members and public figures from other parties – including Likud, Yesh Atid and even Zionist Union – who understand quite well where Smotrich and his colleagues in the Habayit Hayehudi party are dragging the state, but are afraid to stand up, form a united front with the Israeli left and tell the public the truth: Smotrichism, like Hitlerism, Stalinism and Maoism before them, is an ideology that leads to the perpetration of genocide.

If those who understand this don’t rise up and eliminate this danger now, this will be the tragic end of the Palestinian people. But it will also be the end of the vision of a sovereign Jewish existence in Israel.

Prof. Blatman is a historian of the Holocaust and genocide at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Contrast the Eviction of a Jewish Settlement and the Demolition of the Arab village of Umm al-Hiran

The Eviction of Amona is a form of Zionist Street Theatre

racist Israeli Jewish youth help the Amona settlers defy a court order - if they were Palestinians they would have been dispersed with the utmost violence

What a contrast between the eviction of the illegal West Bank settlement of Amona and the destruction of the Palestinian village of Umm al-Hiran, which is inside Israel.  The Guardian reported that when the illegal settlement of Amona was evicted, 'At least 13 police officers were injured in sporadic clashes with the settlers as teenagers set fires, threw objects and scuffled with officers as they swamped the outpost.'  

Settlers are treated with kid gloves because they are Jewish

Israel's Police fire a rubber bullet at the leader of the Palestinian Joint List in the Knesset - hatred of elected Arabs is strong amongst Israeli state forces in the world's 'only democracy'

And just in this sentence you see the racism of the Israeli state.  When Palestinians throw stones the Police open fire.  They open fire, as we saw in the eviction of Umm al-Hiran recently, even when there is nothing thrown, at a moving car.

In Amona the Police went out of their way not to violently assault what were violent settlers.  In Umm al-Hiran the Police shot, without warning, a rubber bullet directly at the leader of the Joint List, Aymen Odeh, injuring him in the back and then lying about what they did.

Aymen Odeh MK injured by racist Israeli police

Israel's Police claim that this was a stone - whereas it is clear it is a blunt injury caused by a rubber bullet

 Of course the BBC's coverage of the eviction focused on the 'trauma' caused by evicting fellow Jews and how this demonstrates how democratic Israel is.  In fact this is one of the very few examples of the eviction of Jewish settlers in the West Bank.  The case was blatant because the settlement was on private Palestinian land that the State had not yet confiscated.  As a result of this 'trauma' another 3,000 settlement units have been agreed - all on  'confiscated' land.