Dani Dayan, the chairman of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization that represents the settlers, attacked Mr. Olmert’s announcement about financing as “collective punishment” and said that politicians were mounting a campaign of incitement and demonization against the settlers before the national elections set for Feb. 10.
Mr. Dayan said that the only government investment in the outposts today was indirect, in the form of the regional council funds, which go to services like garbage collection and school buses. “Does this mean that they won’t clear the garbage?” Mr. Dayan asked, adding that he hoped “this bad government will be replaced with a better one in four months.”
(I may be on Al-Jazeera later. Check back for update)
Full details:
Prime Minister Olmert said: “Of late, we have witnessed several very serious phenomena. I would like to say at the outset that the overwhelming majority of residents in Judea and Samaria live there legally. They are law-abiding citizens. They love both the people and the land. We have only high regard for them. But there is also a not small group of wild people who behave in a way that threatens proper law and governance, not only in the areas in which they live but also in the overall atmosphere of the State of Israel. This is unacceptable and we cannot countenance it. These violations of the law have been accompanied, more than once, by violent behavior toward security and law-enforcement personnel. Attacking soldiers and their commanders, attacking policemen and other security personnel, and injuring them are unacceptable. We are not prepared to countenance it and we will not.”
Prime Minister Olmert emphasized that measures would be taken so that the West Bank would not be Israel’s ‘wild west’.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel Security Agency Director Yuval Diskin, Justice Minister Prof. Daniel Friedmann, Attorney-General Meni Mazuz, Public Security Minister Avi Dicter, Israel Police Deputy Inspector-General Shahar Ayalon and other senior officials briefed ministers on the issue of law enforcement in the territories including relations between extremist settler groups and the security establishment, the prevailing violence, and the responses of the law enforcement system against the surging violence that threatens the rule of law in Judea and Samaria, and in Israel.
Following the subsequent discussion, Prime Minister Olmert concluded as follows:
A. The recent disturbances constitute a threat to the rule of law in the entire State of Israel.
B. Dealing with the issues requires special preparations and cooperation between the IDF and the judicial and enforcement authorities operating in Judea and Samaria.
C. Measures necessary today will be increased as much as possible, including increasing enforcement personnel, documenting disturbances, arresting those who break the law and bringing them quickly to trial, the use of administrative detention and distance orders, and such additional measures as may be necessary.
D. All possible measures will continue to be used in dealing with illegal construction. Residents of Judea and Samaria will receive appropriate and effective responses vis-à-vis legal construction permits in accordance with the Government’s international commitments.
E. The judicial will formulate legal measures so as to increase punishment of those who break the law along the lines that have been witnessed in recent weeks.
F. Justice Minister Friedmann, in cooperation with the legal establishment, will continue to initiate legislative amendments wherever existing measures are found to be ineffective, and will act to complete legislative processes already underway.
G. Defense minister Barak will be responsible for coordinating efforts on the issue, in cooperation with the ministries of Justice and Public Security, Vice Premier Haim Ramon (as Prime Minister Olmert’s representative), the IDF, the Israel Police, the ISA and Attorney-General Mazuz.
H. Defense Minister Barak will brief the Government on the issue and submit general recommendations for dealing with it, within two weeks.
I(ii). The involvement of public employees in incitement will be examined and appropriate measures will be taken against them.
(ii). All direct or indirect financial support of illegal outposts, and their infrastructures, will be halted.
And this update:
The Committee of Samaria Settlers is set to file a complaint against Vice Premier Haim Ramon and National Infrastructures Minister Binymain Ben-Eliezer, claiming that remarks made by the two made during a cabinet meeting Sunday constituted libel and incitement against the settler community.
While Ramon had expressed displeasure over "discrimination and apartheid in dealing with Palestinians and Jews involved in disturbances in Judea and Samaria," Ben-Eliezer warned of political violence and said of the settlers: "They don't think like us; their thought is messianic, mystical, satanic, and irrational."
..."Leading the libelers and defamers is convicted criminal Haim Ramon," the complaint read. "He initiated the meeting and called for the arrest of hundreds of civilians on the basis of 'intelligence.' Following in Ramon's wake was Minister Fuad [Binyamin] Ben-Eliezer, who called the excellent settler community people with 'satanic thought,' no less, and went so far as to recommend that a 'blitz' be opened against them, (a word which in German means a swift murderous battle)."
In his letter to Mazuz, the representative of the settlers, lawyer Doron Ben-Zvi went on to assert that "failure to initiate an investigation of the ministers will constitute clear favoritism… Regrettably, you not only participated in the cabinet meeting but stood aloof while several of the senior ministers (as well as the prime minister himself) made horrible incitive remarks
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