Settler extremists living in a disputed house in the West Bank city of Hebron have erected a banner reading “Supreme Court - Sodom.” This obscurantist insult is directed at Israel’s Supreme Court, which has issued the settlers with an eviction order.

The house could become the catalyst for another confrontation between the IDF and the settler extremists. AP reports:

“The Supreme Court order concerning the evacuation of the house will be carried out,” Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Saturday, according to a statement by his office.

…

In recent days, settlers have clashed with Israeli security forces and Palestinian residents in the area. In one incident, settlers punctured tires of several police vans, threw turpentine at a soldier, defaced headstones in a Muslim cemetery and wrote slogans insulting Prophet Muhammad on the facade of a mosque.

Vilnai called on settler leaders to step in. “We are talking about a small group of lawbreakers, which gives a bad name to all the settlers,” he said. “But the leadership also has to take responsibility.”

The Jerusalem Post reports that IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi is reluctant to use force to evict the settlers, fearing that some soldiers and police officers might refuse, out of sympathy, to take part. At the same time, the Post reports that Defense Minister Ehud Barak is resolved to carry out the Supreme Court decision to the letter.

And, as Ha’aretz reported, the settler extremists have done little in recent days to endear themselves to IDF soldiers or the Israeli public more generally:

“A group of Israeli teens in Hebron on Saturday attacked Border Patrol officers outside the city’s police station.

The police were setting out for a patrol of the city when they were set upon by the youths, who had come to the station after one of their friends was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer.”

Over at Harry’s Place, Gene explains the significance of the settlement movement in Hebron:

“…[A]t least one settlement– a constant source of strife for both Palestinians and Israeli soldiers and police– ought to be evacuated without delay.

That settlement is in Hebron, where about 600 religiously-motivated Jews– convinced they have a God-given right to be there– live in an enclave in the heart of a city of 180,000 Palestinians. The settlement should have been evacuated in 1994 after the settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians praying at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. It would have been evacuated if Yasser Arafat had agreed in 2000 to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Rather ironically, the name of the flashpoint building in Hebron is Beit Hashalom - “The House of Peace.”