One year after it was ordered to remove the illegal outpost of Amona, the government is now claiming that the evacuation has to be postponed, since it ‘may harm the interests of the state.’ We are, after all, negotiating with the Palestinians.

Last August, the High Court of Justice ruled that the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona is to be totally evacuated, with the exception of those plots of lands which the settlers claim to have purchased – claims about which there are, to put it mildly, serious doubts. Thus, the court rejected the scandalous interpretation by the Attorney General, who tried to transform the evacuation order of an entire outpost into an order for the removal of one structure. The state disgraced itself during that hearing, with one justice commenting that “it seems the state does not understand what it is saying,” while another wondered whether the state had realized its new position effectively refuted its earlier claims. One would think the state ought to have learned its lesson. Instead, it decided to humiliate itself again.

Instead of implementing the court’s order, the state is attempting a very old shtick: it is now claiming that the evacuation of Amona has to be postponed, since it is afraid that “such an evacuation in such a time may harm the interests of the state.” We are, after all, negotiating with the Palestinians.