The
activists pitched more than two dozen tents at the site on Friday, claiming
rights to the land and drawing attention to Israel’s internationally condemned
settlement policy.
Before dawn
Sunday, hundreds of Israeli police and paramilitary border troops evicted the
protesters. Despite the eviction, Mustafa Barghouti, one of the protest
leaders, claimed success, saying the overall strategy is to “make (Israel’s)
occupation costly.”
The planned
settlement, also known as E-1, would intensify east Jerusalem’s separation from
the West Bank, war-won areas the Palestinians want for their state. The project
had been on hold for years, in part because of U.S. objections.
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has revived the E-1 plans late last year in response
to the Palestinians’ successful bid for U.N. recognition of a state of
Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.
Jewish
settlements in the West Bank are at the heart of the current four-year impasse
in Mideast peace efforts. The Palestinians have refused to negotiate while
Israel continues to build settlements on the lands they seek for their state.
Netanyahu says peace talks should start without any preconditions. Furthermore,
Netanyahu also rejects any division of Jerusalem.
Israel
expanded the boundaries of east Jerusalem after the 1967 war and then annexed
the area — a move not recognized by the international community. Since then, it
has built a ring of Jewish settlements in the enlarged eastern sector to cement
its control over the city.
E-1 would be
built in the West Bank just east of Jerusalem, and would close one of the last
options for Palestinians to create territorial continuity between Arab
neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, their hoped-for capital, and the West Bank.
According to building plans, E-1 would have more than 3,000 apartments.
The
Palestinians say they turned to the U.N. last November out of frustration with
the deadlock in peace talks. They believe the international endorsement of the
1967 lines will bolster their position in negotiations. Israel has accused the
Palestinians of trying to bypass the negotiating process and impose a solution.
Netanyahu
told Israel Army Radio on Sunday that it would take time to build E-1, citing
planning procedures. Still, he said, “We will complete the planning, and there
will be construction.”
When asked why
the protesters were removed, Netanyahu said, “They have no reason to be there.
I asked immediately to close the area so people would not gather there
needlessly and generate friction and disrupt public order.”
Palestinian
protest leaders hoped the tent camp would be the first of a new type of well
planned, nonviolent protests against Israeli policies in the Palestinian
territories.
In recent
years, Palestinians have staged weekly rallies in some areas of the West Bank,
demanding to get back land they lost to Israel’s separation barrier.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has held up such tactics as worthy of
emulation. The protests have remained relatively small, and media coverage has
dropped off over the years.
The tent
camp was set up after a month of planning by grass-roots groups using Facebook,
Google Earth and other tools to find the right spot and stay in touch, said
organizer Abdullah Abu Rahma.
The
Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government in parts of the West Bank,
provided legal assistance. The activists said they pitched the tents on private
Palestinian land and immediately obtained an Israeli court injunction
preventing the removal of the tents for several days.
At the next
court hearing, Israel will have to explain why it wants to take down the tents,
said Mohammed Nazzal, a Palestinian Authority official whose department is
involved in the legal proceedings. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld
said he believes one of the issues in the hearing will be the status of the
land where the tents were pitched.
Barghouti,
meanwhile, said troops beat some of the protesters, a claim Rosenfeld denied.
Rosenfeld said the protesters were carried away without injuries, put onto
buses and dropped off at a West Bank checkpoint.
About half a
million Israelis live in the dozens of settlements that are located in the West
Bank and east Jerusalem. Over the past 15 years, Jewish settlers have also set
up dozens of rogue settlement outposts without formal government approval. Critics
say the government has done little to remove them.