NOT SO SWEET HOME

Israeli soldiers and police stormed a disputed building in the biblical city of Hebron, dragging out 250 young settlers in a raid meant to send a warning to Jewish extremists fighting to keep what they see as God-promised land. But activists responded with a wave of attacks on Israeli forces and Palestinians, even as Israeli politicians and some settler leaders denounced them.


This city of 170,000 Palestinians, with about 600 of the most extreme Jewish settlers living among them in small enclaves, is the traditional burial site of Abraham, the patriarch of both Jews and Muslims, and has been a focal point of Israeli-Arab violence for decades. Extremist settlers say they want to expel all Palestinians from the city and have sought to expand their footholds here as part of a militant campaign to pressure Israel to hold on to all of the West Bank.


Settlers moved in to the four-story building in March 2007 claiming they bought it from a Palestinian. The man denied selling it, and Israeli authorities did not recognize the sale as legal. Israel's Supreme Court ordered the house vacated last month, but settlers refused. In the surprise raid, some 600 soldiers and officers police rushed into the house and quickly began dragging out people one by one, their hands and legs held by teams of two or four officers. Settlers, including young girls, punched and hit soldiers. Security officers in full riot gear fired stun grenades and tear gas.


Extremists tried to force their way back inside, but soldiers, who cleared the structure in just 20 minutes, formed a human chain to keep them out. After losing the battle, the settlers rioted, setting fires near at least three Palestinian houses and burning nine cars. Palestinians cowered in their homes as settlers pelted the buildings with rocks. Jewish children went on a rampage breaking windows, while Palestinians on rooftops threw stones at settlers and Israeli security forces below.


About 35 settlers and soldiers were reported injured during the eviction, none of them seriously. Palestinian hospital officials said 17 Palestinians were wounded, including five by bullets. The Israeli rights group B'Tselem released video that appeared to show a settler shooting a Palestinian in the stomach at point-blank range, and Palestinians pelting the settler with rocks. In other parts of the West Bank, settlers threw rocks at Palestinian vehicles and burned an olive grove. The Palestinian governor in the Nablus region, Jamal Moheisen, warned that if Israeli forces did not bring the settlers under control, "we will call on the Palestinian residents to go out to the streets and fight back."


In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that "violent elements" who attack Palestinians will "face a quick, stern response from security forces." After nightfall, settlers were still scuffling with Israeli forces and Palestinians. The raid on the building that settlers named the "House of Peace" was the first major West Bank eviction since a 2006 confrontation that injured dozens, but the violent reaction of extremist settlers suggested it might not be the last. Settlers have built more than 100 unauthorized outposts on West Bank, but despite promises to the U.S. that they would be removed, Israel's government has failed to take them down, instead building roads and providing services for some of them.


Though the government sought to intimidate extremists with the swift assault in Hebron, further defiance is likely to be the response from militant settlers. They believe God gave the West Bank to the Jews and no one has the right to take it away. About 275,000 Jewish settlers live among 1.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel wants to hold on to major blocs of West Bank settlements in a land-for-peace deal with Palestinians, offering to trade Israeli territory for about 10 percent of the West Bank.


Hebron is a crucible of the most extreme religion-driven settlers, and the only place with settlers and Palestinians in the same city. Clashes are frequent. Many of the most violent young Jews came to Hebron from other parts of the West Bank, including their leader, Daniella Weiss, a firebrand from the territory's north. Weiss has led shrill opposition to efforts to rein in the most aggressive settlers, backing their creation of the unauthorized settlements to try to prevent an Israeli pullback and creation of a Palestinian state.


Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he ordered the army to evict the settlers after all attempts to persuade them to leave peacefully failed. Barak met with settler leaders earlier in the day, but they failed to reach an agreement. Some settler leaders reacted angrily to the raid. "This could have been done peacefully and legally. Instead Barak chose violence," said Danny Dayan, leader of the Settlers Council. "This surprised us completely."

HE WINS, BUT.......

Opposition gains ground in Venezuela elections. Venezuela's growing opposition and President Hugo Chavez's left-wing party shared the spoils from weekend elections, jostling for political advantage in the oil-producing nation on Monday. The multi-party opposition eroded Chavez's dominance of regional politics, winning six top posts that govern almost half of the population, although his Socialist Party took 17 state races -- a clear majority.The results may complicate Chavez's plan to change the law to run for re-election in 2012. The opposition beat that move in a referendum last year and gained further ground on Sunday.

Chavez said his party may promote reforms next year that would be put to a new referendum to change the constitution and allow him to stand for the presidency again. "If a significant number of Venezuelans think that is appropriate, well, then, that is up to them," said Chavez, who came to power in 1999 and has vowed to rule for decades. On Sunday, the opposition held onto the two states it won at the last regional elections four years ago, picked up three more and won the powerful mayoralty of the capital Caracas.

Opposition candidates were helped by widespread voter complaints Chavez has failed to control the high murder rate and Latin America's highest inflation. The overall mixed results triggered a public relations battle as each side fought to seize the momentum after an election where a high 65 percent of voters cast ballots. The outcome of the post-election tussle could determine whether Chavez has the backing to realise his re-election goal or follow through on threats to spread his nationalizations program by seizing assets from landowners or food companies. But still popular for spending freely on the majority poor, the man who calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his mentor vowed to accelerate his drive towards socialism despite plummeting income from Venezuela's main export, oil.

Chavez, who campaigned frenetically saying his political future was at risk, claimed victory. It was "madness" to call the opposition the overall winner due to its gains, he said. "We dealt them another defeat, and a big one," he said. His party said the political map was still painted the red of Chavez's self-styled revolution and that his allies tallied about 1.5 million more votes overall than the opposition. Chavez said his party won 80 percent of the mayoralties.

But emboldened by its second electoral advance in 12 months, the opposition also celebrated that it now governs over Venezuela's most populous areas in a coastal "electoral corridor" that is often key to winning Venezuelan elections. The opposition's wins in major urban centres enhance its visibility and build up its credibility that it can meet voters' demands for better services such as trash collection. Leopoldo Lopez, a young opposition star who the government blocked from standing with legal technicalities, said the election showed Venezuelan politics had finally shifted after years of Chavez's dominance. "We need to build an alternative for a different Venezuela that brings people together in the centre," he said.

But Chavez, a former paratrooper who sought to polarize the election by threatening during the campaign to cut off funds -- or even deploy tanks -- in areas where "oligarchs" won, immediately went on the offensive on Monday. He warned he would keep his eye on one opposition governor, Enrique Capriles of Miranda state, recalling a legal case accusing him of supporting a failed coup against Chavez in 2002. The president, who shut an opposition TV station last year, demanded "severe sanction" against another channel for saying his candidate had lost in one race before it was official.

IT WAS NOT A DREAM AFTER ALL