The building freeze in the settlements is, in part, a result of heavy diplomatic pressure by U.S. President Obama on Israel to completely halt all settlement activity in the West Bank—also known as Judea and Samaria—hoping it will help to resume peace negotiations in the region.
“This decree is anti-moral, anti-Jewish, and anti-Zionist,” said Henanel Durani, mayor of Kedumim, an Israeli community in the West Bank in an interview with The Epoch Times a few weeks ago in the wake of the announcement of the partial freeze. Durani mentioned plans for widespread protest, legal action, and plans to mobilize military police against the settlement freeze.
He also emphasized the use of civil disobedience in the fight against the freeze.
“Where everything is prohibited, everything is allowed,” said Durani. He added that no violent actions were planned but that residents are not going to cooperate with the inspectors of the Israeli government’s civil administration, who are responsible for enforcing the freeze.
“People are going to resist and prevent the inspectors from doing their work,” said Durani.
Since the beginning of the freeze, the Jewish population in the West Bank has acted exactly as Durani predicted. In some communities, the residents have prevented inspectors from entering settlements or blocked their way.
Some inspectors have been accompanied by large numbers of policemen, and arrests of settlers have been made. Nonetheless, no major violence has been reported. About 15,000 people attended a rally in front of the prime minister’s residence to protest the building freeze.
Price Tag
Last week an Arab mosque was vandalized and set on fire in a Palestinian village near Nablus, and a spray-painted message reading, “get ready for the price tag” was left behind.
Prominent rabbinical figures in the religious-national communities have denounced these actions as immoral and damaging to the cause of the settlement movement. According to the left wing human rights NGO B’Tselem, accounts of settler violence against Palestinians are a common scene for the past few years. Actions include blocking roads, destructions of crops, harassment of shop owners, and more. During the olive harvesting season, groups of young settlers organize attacks on Palestinian farmers. It is hard to know which of these actions are part of the price tag strategy and which are sporadic violence. There is almost no data about the scope of price tag events.
According to statistics published by the U.N.’s office of Humanitarian Response Coordination, 25 cases of settler violence were recorded last November, a drop from 41 recorded events in October. In a report focusing on the price tag strategy the U.N. calculated that 81 Palestinian communities with 250,000 people are especially vulnerable to settler violence.
The report also stated that this strategy never gains ground in the West Bank and its scope is limited. It is important to note that the U.N. organ dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were accused many times for having a strong anti-Israel biased.
Keeping the Struggle Nonviolent
Some in the settlements, while not resorting to violence, are also refusing to budge on the key issue of new construction.
“We are going to continue with the policy we decided on,” said Dani Dayan, the head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for all Jewish communities in the West Bank. “We will continue to build. In the near future you will see a lot of ceremonies for laying cornerstones for new buildings. Other measures will be decided on later.”
Around 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank according to a recent survey.
Gershon Masika, the head of Samaria Regional Council, told The Epoch Times that he has doubts regarding whether a person from the religious nationalist movement can do such a thing.
“There are great concerns this is a provocation—by the General Security Service, the left or by the Arabs—maybe it’s a weirdo acting alone,” said Masika. “It is impossible someone would do something that causes only damage. Burning a mosque is lowering ourselves.”
On the same subject Dayan added that such a deed is wrong morally and totally unacceptable.
“We state clearly that this struggle is to be carried out nonviolently and that is exactly the way it was done—with no violence.” Dayan added that this has been emphasized many times and as clearly as possible.
“The religious national movement can’t denounce her responsibility to the vandalism of the mosque,” said Rabbi Arik Asherman, from Rabbis for Human Rights. “Even if there is a small minority of people doing things like that, or a minority using price tag tactics, the leadership turned a blind eye, or ignored those acts. They didn’t do enough.”
Dayan does not think he, as a leader of the population in the settlements, can be considered responsible for such actions as burning a mosque. “I won’t accept people hampering our struggle because of this. Whoever breaks the law, the police and security forces should take care of him. You can’t tell a group of people not to engage in legitimate struggle because of a few people breaking the law.”
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