With neither side exhibiting willingness to back down, the stage is set for a contentious clash between Israel and the U.S. over settlement policy.
After the ceremony, Landau mingled easily with settlement leaders, who beseeched him for support. Though Landau's bodyguard attempted to prevent journalists from approaching him, my journalistic colleague Jesse Rosenfeld managed to ask him about Obama's call for freeze on settlement construction. Visibly irritated by the mention of Obama's demand, Landau issued an unequivocal statement. "Those who say, or are trying to suggest that Arabs can build anywhere and everywhere, and Jews can't -it's something that should be totally rejected."
Since arriving in Israel, I have observed the battle over settlement expansion from an on-the-ground perspective. On May 16, I traveled with the Israeli peace group Ta'ayush to Hilltop 26, an illegal hilltop outpost constructed by settlers from Kiryat Arba - not an aspect of "natural growth." Four angry settler youths confronted us upon our arrival; within minutes, a squadron of Israeli border police officers, soldiers and a Kiryat Arba security team were on the scene. The army swiftly issued a "closed military zone order," ordering us to leave within five minutes or be arrested. While the soldiers initially allowed the settler youth to stay, the presence of international media apparently prompted them to briefly remove the teenagers while allowing their outpost to remain - an act that underscored the army's collaboration with settlers to stifle the activities of peace groups. (See the confrontation in my exclusive Daily Beast video report here.)
On May 25, Ta'ayush member Joseph Dana detailed to me the continued development of Hilltop 26. Since I visited the outpost, Kiryat Arba settlers had wired it with electricity and established a security perimeter. Two days before, Dana and two other Ta'ayush activists were arrested by Israeli army officers for returning to the area to document conditions and not leaving rapidly enough. After interrogating the activists in Kiryat Arba police stations - "Why are you always creating chaos here?" Dana said the army commander angrily asked him - the commander ignored two calls from left-wing members of Knesset for the activists' immediate release. In the end, Dana and his colleagues were released under the condition that they not return to the West Bank for 15 days.
Two days after I listened to Dana's story, he called me with unexpected news: the army had dismantled Hilltop 26. Netanyahu had issued a list of 26 illegal outposts he planned to demolish -- an unsuccessful tactic to mollify the Obama administration -- but Hilltop 26 was not among them. Dana attributed the sudden demolition to intense coverage of the controversy, particularly my video for the Daily Beast and an editorial he authored for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. "It seems like the government was so embarrassed by all the media coverage, and even though they tried to prevent us from even going to Hilltop 26 to document what was happening there, they decided they had to take action," Dana told me.
Max Blumenthal presents a disturbing inside look at the largest annual gathering of radical Jewish settlers. A Mondoweiss exclusive with David Jacobus and Jesse Rosenfeld. Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective.
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