Exclusive Video: The Radical Settlers Behind Israel's Clash with Obama

By Max Blumenthal, AlterNet. Posted June 3, 2009.

Since arriving in Israel, I have observed the battle over settlement expansion from an on-the-ground perspective. On May 16, I traveled with the Israeli peace group Ta'ayush to Hilltop 26, an illegal hilltop outpost constructed by settlers from Kiryat Arba - not an aspect of "natural growth." Four angry settler youths confronted us upon our arrival; within minutes, a squadron of Israeli border police officers, soldiers and a Kiryat Arba security team were on the scene. The army swiftly issued a "closed military zone order," ordering us to leave within five minutes or be arrested. While the soldiers initially allowed the settler youth to stay, the presence of international media apparently prompted them to briefly remove the teenagers while allowing their outpost to remain - an act that underscored the army's collaboration with settlers to stifle the activities of peace groups. (See the confrontation in my exclusive Daily Beast video report here.)

On May 25, Ta'ayush member Joseph Dana detailed to me the continued development of Hilltop 26. Since I visited the outpost, Kiryat Arba settlers had wired it with electricity and established a security perimeter. Two days before, Dana and two other Ta'ayush activists were arrested by Israeli army officers for returning to the area to document conditions and not leaving rapidly enough. After interrogating the activists in Kiryat Arba police stations - "Why are you always creating chaos here?" Dana said the army commander angrily asked him - the commander ignored two calls from left-wing members of Knesset for the activists' immediate release. In the end, Dana and his colleagues were released under the condition that they not return to the West Bank for 15 days.

Two days after I listened to Dana's story, he called me with unexpected news: the army had dismantled Hilltop 26. Netanyahu had issued a list of 26 illegal outposts he planned to demolish -- an unsuccessful tactic to mollify the Obama administration -- but Hilltop 26 was not among them. Dana attributed the sudden demolition to intense coverage of the controversy, particularly my video for the Daily Beast and an editorial he authored for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. "It seems like the government was so embarrassed by all the media coverage, and even though they tried to prevent us from even going to Hilltop 26 to document what was happening there, they decided they had to take action," Dana told me.

The demolition, however, has sparked a furious backlash from the fanatics of Kiryat Arba. According to Dana, the settlers have initiated a new round of violence inside Hebron - already, an elderly Palestinian man has been beaten. And while the settlers hatched plans to rebuild the outpost, the following call for retribution appeared on a Kiryat Arba web forum: "The destruction of outposts and their surrender is the first step in the bigger scheme... we will not be silent any longer! We will not silently abided by false declarations, promises and temptations... Bribes blind the eyes of the righteous. We will stop the cleansing at the source." The battle over Hilltop 26 appears to be just beginning. So does the struggle between Obama and Netanyahu.

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Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and writing fellow at The Nation Institute, whose book, Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books), is forthcoming in Spring 2009. Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.