Word: hebron
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...math question: if it took 3,000 Israeli troops and police to evict two families of Jewish settlers from the West Bank city of Hebron, how many would it take to clear out the 275,000 Jewish settlers living inside the Palestinian territories...
Will Olmert, or any future Prime Minister, be able to pull it off? A preview of this mammoth challenge was on display in Hebron, where 800 Jewish settlers live surrounded by 180,000 Palestinians in what Ha'aretz newspaper columnist Benny Ziffer has called "a kind of nature park of extremism." The Jewish settlers are protected at great cost to the nation by Israeli security forces. But after months of dithering and judicial pressure, Israel's government decided on Aug. 7 to remove two Jewish families squatting in Palestinian-owned buildings. At 6:20 a.m., riot police bashed in doors...
...Hebron incident has resounded like an explosion deep inside Israeli army barracks. Many Israeli soldiers and officers in the elite combat units were raised in illegal settlements within the occupied Palestinian territories, and their sympathies lie with their religious Zionist brethren in Hebron...
...military is clearly concerned that the Hebron mini-insurrection may be a warning of what could occur on a wider scale if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tries to remove some of dozens oF illegal settlements in the West Bank, as demanded by the international community and the United States. Tuesday's operation, after all, involved the eviction of only two families, but required over 3,000 troops and policemen. The evacuation of an entire settlement, some officers say privately, could lead to widespread dissent within the army ranks...
...Palestinians in Hebron, whose lives are turned inside out by Israeli security measures to protect the handful of Jewish settlers living near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, said that while they were relieved to see the settlers evicted, they doubted that it represented a tougher stance by Olmert. "These families will be back," one Arab resident remarked grimly after watching the early morning tussle between police and Jewish settlers. Angered by the provocative presence of the right-wing Israelis in their midst, many Hebron Palestinians have turned to militants of their own, choosing candidates of the Islamist Hamas movement...