MIDDLE EAST: Israelis got a taste yesterday of the type of internal violence that might erupt if their government decided to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, when hundreds of settlers clashed with security forces trying to dismantle an illegal settler outpost in the West Bank.
The settlers, many of them teenagers, who had gathered at the Havat Gilad outpost near the West Bank city of Nablus, scuffled with security forces and police, ripping their uniforms, puncturing the tyres of security vehicles and smashing windshields as they tried to prevent the evacuation of the outpost.
Forty-three policeman were lightly injured in the clashes, and 15 settlers were arrested.
Soldiers and police finally succeeded in removing the protesting settlers, dragging many of them away, and then dismantled the last two structures on the hilltop outpost. Towards evening, however, after the army departed, settlers returned to the site and began rebuilding the outpost.
The Israeli Minister of Defence, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who also heads the centre-left Labour Party, recently ordered the dismantling of some two dozen of the illegal outposts, which settlers have set up across the West Bank over the last four years - there are close to 100 now - in a bid to torpedo any future land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians.
Settler leaders have accused Mr Ben-Eliezer, who faces a tough challenge in a party leadership primary next month, of ordering the move for political reasons.
"The revolt of the settlers against authority is a danger to our existence," Mr Ben-Eliezer warned yesterday, saying he would quit the government if he did not get backing for removing the illegal outposts.
A senior army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, warned that "the violence and lawbreaking against security forces could end in the killings of soldiers."
The furore was also fuelled by the fact that there were efforts to evacuate the outpost on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, which can only be violated for life-threatening reasons.
This is the rationale given for Israeli military activity against Palestinian militants, which continues unabated through the Sabbath.
The pro-settler National Religious Party (NRP) threatened to quit the government over the issue, pointing out that many of the soldiers were observant Jews. NRP leader and Infrastructures Minister Mr Effi Eitam lashed out at Mr Ben-Eliezer, calling him a "coward" and "stupid".
While critical of the army action on the Sabbath, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, one of the architects of the settlements, also criticised the settlers yesterday. The "most serious thing of all", he said, "was violence against soldiers and the security forces".
Meanwhile, Mr Sharon decided yesterday to adopt Mr Ben-Eliezer's recommendation to reduce the military's presence in the divided West Bank city of Hebron, limiting it to two neighbourhoods in the Palestinian-controlled section of the city from where Israel says Palestinian gunmen have fired on the Jewish settler enclave there.