The Left complains about the return to Homesh

YNET

[..] ‘Soldiers turned into accomplices to a crime’

The Left slammed the decision to allow IDF forces to secure Monday’s march.

“The defense minister is turning IDF soldiers, against their will, into accomplices to a crime,” MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) said.

“Instead of the IDF enforcing the law and preventing the settlers from reaching Homesh, it is ensuring their security and facilitating their arrival,” she continued.

Peace Now Director Yariv Oppenheimer also accused the IDF of breaking the law by guarding the evacuees during their march.

“It’s an outrage. Everything they’re doing is illegal. There is a law that unequivocally states that returning to evacuated areas is prohibited without a special permit being issued. There is no such permit,” Oppenheimer said.

“We’re not allowed to get close when we go to protest; they set up roadblocks and what not. Here they are being allowed to return, while they are breaking the law. They can pass with no hindrance,” he continued.

Oppenheimer said that the most disturbing thing about the affair was the fact that the settlers were not hiding their intentions of resettling Homesh. “They don’t intend to leave there, so why is the army allowing them to go there in the first place?”

“It is inconceivable. The army’s job is not to treat them like kings, the people who are unequivocally advocating breaking the law. It’s unbelievable. If they stay in the territories, we will appeal to the High Court of Justice,” Oppenheimer said.

MK Ofir Pines-Paz (Labor) also criticized Peretz, as well as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“The prime minister’s and defense minister’s defeatist attitude towards the law-breakers in Homesh proves yet again that we have a morally spineless, agenda-lacking government, which has no right to exist,” Pines-Paz concluded.

Olmert commented on the march following his meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at his Jerusalem residence on Monday.

“This visit will end today. I hope we will not have to evacuate the citizens. We are committed to our prior obligation to evacuate illegal outposts, and we have no intention of allowing the establishment of one,” Olmert said.