Shevah Stern, head of the Likud’s “National Headquarters” faction and a candidate in the Likud primaries running for the party’s Knesset list, has launched a public call on Prime Minister and Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu to obligate himself to arranging the legal status of Amona in Samaria and prevent the town’s destruction.

Stern’s call for Netanyahu to make a campaign commitment ahead of March 17 elections comes on the background of a High Court decision last Thursday to destroy the town within two years – despite the total absence of evidence behind Arab land claims, and the legal purchase of large parts of the community.

“We’ve already been in this movie,” said Stern. “The horrors of the evacuation of Amona in 2006 are still burned into the national awareness. The public wants to know that it elects Likud and receives Likud, and not Labor B.”

The statement refers to the 2004 state order of the demolition of nine homes despite Arab land claims bearing no proof. In 2006, the IDF and police came out in full force to remove residents and hundreds of protesters, wounding over 300 people, including three MKs. In an inquiry later, the Knesset decided that the police had exercised excessive force.

Reminding how former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raised his 2005 Disengagement plan from within Likud before splitting off into Kadima to carry it out, Stern noted: “it cannot be that there will be opportunists in Likud who at the moment of truth vote for giving away territories and against the land of Israel, in opposition to all the values of the movement.”

“Mister prime minister, if we want the confidence of the right-wing voter – obligate yourself to arrange the legal status of Amona,” concluded Stern.

Stern’s words echo those of Rabbi Yair Frank, the rabbi of Amona, who last Friday said members of the community “expect and demand today from the political echelon, and first of all from the Likud and Jewish Home parties, to…show us all the firm, strong Zionist vision against all those who seek to weaken it, and through legislature in the Knesset will overturn this wretched decision.”

“This in our eyes will be the main test of Netanyahu in the next term, and he needs to obligate to it today,” concluded Rabbi Frank.