Settlers starve to save Beit El

JUST three weeks after Palestinians in Israeli prisons scored major concessions and ended their hunger strike, Israel was presented with a hunger strike from the other political direction – settlers.

On Monday, Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, the umbrella organisation for settlers, stopped eating to protest PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision that he will, after all, evacuate 30 homes in the settlement of Beit El by July 1.

The Israeli government has committed in court to the evacuation because the homes are built on privately owned Palestinian land. But settlers say they can prove they own the land and if they can’t prove it then the Palestinians claiming ownership should be compensated and the buildings be retroactively legalised.

Dayan is joining a handful of other settler activists on the hunger strike. “This is necessary to put pressure on ministers and members of Knesset to save residents’ houses,” he told The AJN shortly after his last meal. Dozens of other activists set out on a four-day protest march from Beit El to Jerusalem on Monday, and right-wing politicians pinned their hopes on a Knesset bill that would force Netanyahu to back down.

Netanyahu had tried to offer ­settlers a double sweetener when he announced he would evacuate, firstly saying he wants to physically move the buildings in question at the state’s expense, meaning homeowners would actually keep their apartments, just in a different location, and secondly promising a deterrent against future lawsuits on settlement homes. “The settlement enterprise will be advanced through building,” Israel’s Channel 2 quoted Netanyahu as saying. “For every home we are forced to evacuate, we will build 10 in its place.”

But Dayan and the protestors rejected his offer, saying nobody should need to relocate.

Michael Sfard, the lawyer representing the Palestinian landowners, believes Dayan may get his wish. “I don’t believe the evacuation [will happen] until I see it,” he told The AJN.

If it does take place and Netanyahu’s plan to physically move the buildings is implemented, Sfard claims it will be a waste of taxpayers’ money. “I am deeply disturbed that law enforcement for this land grab is subject to a huge amount of money, basically appeasing settlers.”

NATHAN JEFFAY