Israel: Angry settlers march in front of Palestinian village

Israel does not rest

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Jerusalem. More than 17,000 right-wing activists demonstrated Monday afternoon against the Israeli government under massive army protection. “We sent you to rule as a right-wing government should!” one of them shouted through the megaphone. It wouldn’t have needed the loudspeaker at all: almost thirty government politician, including seven incumbent ministers, took part in the protest against their own coalition. And that wasn’t the only absurdity of this protest.

The route of march the right settler led to an area owned by Palestinian landowners but claimed by the settlers for their own use. According to Israeli law, however, Israelis are forbidden from entering the area – and to ensure that this does not happen, it is constantly guarded by soldiers. So on Monday, these uniformed guards watched as thousands of Israelis, including many politicians and rabbis, approached this exclusion zone.

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“We are returning to Eviatar!” shouted the activists – Eviatar is the name they have given the area. The hill had been repeatedly illegally settled and later cleared. Israel’s new government, in which far-right settlers hold important positions, announced at the beginning of its term that Law to change and allow colonization of Eviatar. In other words, the Palestinian landowners would be expropriated without compensation.

Government backs down on settlement of Palestinian territory

Since this holds a lot of explosives and the situation is currently extremely tense anyway, the government has postponed this step for the time being, at least until the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. That drove the settler activists to the Palm tree – and finally on the street on Monday.

There were quite a few in Israel’s army who mass march in the northern West Bank considered highly risky in days of peak tension. For a week now there hasn’t been a night without violence. The perpetrators of the devastating attack in the Jordan Valley on Friday that claimed the lives of two sisters and their mother have still not been caught.

Far-right minister at anti-government demonstration in West Bank

The fact that, according to media reports, an entire company has now been delegated to protect the right-wing activists on their “march to Eviatar” instead of looking for the fugitive terrorists, has met with some criticism in Israel. The fact that Israel’s Minister for National Security, the right-wing extremists Itamar Ben Gvir, heads to the West Bank for several hours on an anti-government rally amid heightened terror risks in cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

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The current poll numbers offer an explanation. The centre-left has never been so popular with voters, and the Prime Minister’s Likud party has never cut it Benjamin Netanyahu so bad off The right-wing extremists in the government – ​​i.e. Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotritsch – have therefore long been in the middle of the election campaign. “We will not give up to the terrorists, neither in Eviatar nor in Tel Aviv!” exclaimed Ben Gvir. An Italian tourist was killed in a car attack in Tel Aviv on Friday.