The large Jewish community of Hevron – close to 800 people, including some 90 families – is awaiting the invasion of a large police/army force for the purpose of emptying Peace House of its Jews.



Some 20 families live in the building, known as Beit HaShalom.  They moved in nearly two years ago, following its purchase by a Jewish family in Brooklyn from its Arab builder five years ago. However, the builder later reneged and denied that he had sold it – leading the Supreme Court to order the Jews’ expulsion until the matter is adjudicated.



The Jews have until tomorrow (Wednesday) to leave voluntarily. The expulsion forces are not expected to arrive until after the Sabbath, however, as some 20,000 Jews are expected to arrive in Hevron for the annual Sabbath commemorating the purchase of the Machpelah Cave plot in Hevron by the Patriarch Abraham.  The irony of the timing was widely noted; see below.



An emergency meeting has been scheduled in Hevron for 8:00 this evening in the Kiryat Arba sports hall, at which a call will be issued for Jews to whom the Land of Israel is dear to come and offer resistance to the forced expulsion. Buses will be leaving from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere.



“It is not likely that we will be able to actually stop the expulsion, if the government decides to do it,” Hevron resident Itamar Ben-Gvir told IsraelNationalNews, “but we must offer up as much resistance as we can, so that this calamitous event will be seared in the national consciousness as another Amona.”



Asked what good that will do, considering the fact that the destruction and expulsions continue even after Amona, Ben-Gvir said, “Amona was a major milestone. Olmert had planned, after Amona, to destroy another 97 outposts – one every week or two. This would have been catastrophic. But because of what happened in Amona, he could not proceed. We are now facing a similar situation, and we must respond appropriately.”



On behalf of the Hevron Jewish Community, resident and civil rights activist Orit Strook stated: “The Supreme Court’s decision to steal Beit HaShalom from its Jewish purchasers came with perfect timing: Right in between the [public synagogue reading of the] story of Sodom and Gomorra, and that of the purchase of Hevron by Avraham… Throughout the Beit HaShalom case, the entire judicial establishment has acted as was done in Sodom. In Sodom, too, there were courts, in which the judges enlisted all their wisdom in order to legalize injustice. The same has happened here: the laws and the precedents were all distorted unrecognizably for the purpose of legalizing the expulsion of the Jewish buyers from their property... Both the judges and the Attorney General stood fast and did not allow the facts to confuse them.”