The level of settler violence, always high, has reached a fever pitch of late. Usually the attacks go by the common name “price tag,” which alludes to a form of payback against the government for dismantling illegal settlements. Though lately, the attacks seem to have taken on a life of their own and need no spark to ignite them: three mosques have been burned, two in the past week; a West Bank IDF outpost was trashed and a senior officer injured with a brick thrown through his car window; settlers occupied an abandoned monastery on the Jordanian border to warn King Abdullah not to interfere in matters concerning the Temple Mount; death threats and vandalism against Peace Now leaders.
In particular, the assault against the IDF unit and wounding of the officer seems to have unnerved many in Israel. While Israelis argue about many things, there is an avowed reverence for the IDF in many circles. Whatever you trash, you don’t trash our boys, the ones who protect us. The most radical of the settlers have violated this national covenant because, while there are few threats against their political agenda, if the nation ever turns against them, they understand it will be the army that will face them. In the few instances where the State musters the fortitude to dismantle an outpost or settlement, it is the army that does it. That’s why the most radical settlers espouse outright hatred of the army and engage in regular acts of vandalism and harassment though till now, they’d never risen to this level of intensity.
All of Israel seems to wringing its hands, with the common refrain being–these settlers are not representative of the overwhelming majority of law-abiding settlers. They’re an extremist minority within a minority. They’re an aberration, a schandeh, an embarrassment to Israel in the face of the world community. This Jerusalem Post editorial is typical:
What is needed is some proportion. The burning of mosques by Jewish hooligans is deplorable, but it is no more representative of the country – or the direction it is going – than Florida Pastor Terry Jones’ burning of a Koran in May was a reflection of America.
Terry Jones doesn’t live in occupied territory (unless you want to argue we should return Florida to the Pensacolas). He doesn’t have the mortgage for the house where he resides and which sits on occupied territory, subsidized by the U.S. government. The government hasn’t built roads to his home cutting through land belonging to a foreign nation. Terry Jones doesn’t elect members of Congress who mirror his views precisely. The president doesn’t meet regularly and consult with Terry Jones’ best friends. Terry Jones hasn’t yet killed anyone, let alone a neighbor living next door to him on that occupied land. Terry Jones is a Christian lunatic crackpot. Settlers are most definitely not.
The Israeli government, which itself shares most, if not all of the values of the settler extremists went into emergency session to determine how to deal with the threat posed by the hooliganism and violence. The answer Bibi Netanyahu devised is to begin treating settler criminal suspects just as badly as Palestinian security detainees. In other words, arrest without speedy trial, denial of legal representation, etc. So techniques and tactics which have failed to quell Palestinian resistance will now be used in a failed effort to suppress settler revolt. Not to mention that Israel’s vaunted democratic values, what’s left of them anyway, will be further eroded. But this doesn’t matter to most Israelis, who see security detainees as individuals who don’t deserve any rights.
There was one bridge too far for Bibi, though. He won’t say the “T” word. He wouldn’t call the settlers terrorists. Doing so would allow the State to treat the settlers basically as the U.S. treats Guantanamo detainees, offering them virtually no rights at all.
Former defense minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer’s response to the settler pogroms was to recommend shooting them as the IDF would any Palestinian group which had the chutzpah to invade one of their camps. Shimon Peres called the settlers a schandeh fahr di goyim (but in Hebrew, of course). Jeffrey Goldberg said Israel should “declare war” on them and throw them in the desert prison where it houses Fatah and Hamas terror prisoners, Ketziot (where Goldberg himself served in the IDF).
But there is one basic, fundamental problem with everything I’ve described above and which renders Israel’s response the height of hypocrisy. The settlers are not an aberration. They are not a schandeh. They don’t represent an extremist minority. In fact, about them you could say: “L’etat c’est moi.” The settlers ARE the State. They may be slightly ahead of the conventional political mainstream, but as the American politicians say about Israeli prime ministers when they come to DC: “there’s no daylight between Israel and the U.S.”
I can hear liberal Zionists like Goldberg or Gershom Gorenberg protest that I overstate my case. Even some readers will no doubt try to take me to task. But I maintain that just as Malcolm X said after the Kennedy assassination that the latter’s killing was the “chickens coming home to roost,” so settler killings and general hooliganism are a manifestation of an overall national consensus that Israel must maintain the Occupation virtually forever.
Yes, I know there is supposedly general support for a two state solution, liberal Zionists are fond of pointing out that Bibi even claims to support this approach. But that’s not how to determine what a nation believes. Watch what I do, not what I say, is an old motto regarding politicians. It holds true of nations as well. The vast majority of Israelis may say they support two states, but they also don’t believe there will ever be peace with the Palestinians. A nation which has given up on peace will never make the choices necessary to achieve it.
Why else are settlers who are guilty of major crimes like murder, maiming, arson, etc. almost never charged, let alone prosecuted? Why else when a settler is imprisoned (but only for the most heinous of crimes like mass murder) are they invariably sent to a mental hospital and judged insane, rather than to prison? Why else do Israeli presidents invariably pardon or grant clemency to almost every single Jewish terrorist? At some point, you have to recognize that the terrorist, he is us.
So if Israel wants to maintain the Occupation. If it approves of the ongoing theft of Palestinian land. If it supports the building of the Separation Wall and the consequent sequestration of another 15% or more of available Palestinian land. If it shrugs its shoulders at the constant drip-drip-drip of settler and IDF homicidal violence against both Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, then it must take responsibility for the criminals within, who are little more than mirrors of Israel itself.
Frankly, I’m sick and tired of the faces and arms raised to the sky whenever a settler commits an especially outrageous act (such as the assassination of Rabin, for one). These are not alien acts committed by body snatchers or pod people. These are your own kin, your own fellow citizens. They act on your behalf. They ARE you. You cannot deny them. You cannot distance yourself. You cannot say they work for themselves alone.
From the very first moment of the settlement enterprise shortly after the 1967 War, Israel blessed it and said it was doing God’s and the nation’s work. Even Shimon Peres, who leads the hand-wringers today in claiming these settlers are bad, bad boys who must be spanked by their mommies; even Peres went to the settlements at a critical juncture in the early stages and threw in his lot with them. There would be no Hilltop Youth, no Baruch Marzel, no Yigal Amir without the prior approval offered by Israel’s power élite to the Greater Israel-Gush Emunim movement.
Many Israeli commentators are getting carried away talking about a cancer in the body politic. The most extreme of the settlers are not alien to Israel, they ARE Israel. Look at the Israeli government, at the Knesset. The bright, shiny faces representing Israel on the world stage could just as easily be throwing bricks and Molotov cocktails at IDF officers if they took off their suits and ties (when they wear them). Lieberman? A former Kach member. Yaalon? Committed an act of insubordination against PM Sharon in refusing to evacuate Gaza settlers. Netanyahu? Spoke openly of expelling Israeli Palestinian citizens as recently as 1988. There is almost a seamless web of ideological conviction and action between the current Israeli governing élite and the settlers.
What is to be done? That’s one of the hardest questions to answer. This is why I’ve come to despair that an answer can come from within Israel. Until he died, on good days I believed that Sharon might take on the settlers in the same way Ben Gurion took on Begin by sinking the Altalena in 1948. Now that Sharon is gone, there’s no one. Tzipi Livni? Gimme a break. She may not even win the next Kadima Party primary, let alone become prime minister. Barak? Don’t even go there. So who?
The key is outside intervention. Israel is rapidly turning into Serbia or apartheid era South Africa or Putin’s Russia. It is an outlaw nation. A nation not of laws but of whims and caprices. What Bibi wants, Bibi gets. A TV channel airs documentaries critical of you? Shut it down. An NGO exposes injustices committed by the army or intelligence services? Turn off the tap of foreign support.
Similarly, what settlers want, they get. They are never satisfied with half a loaf when they could have the whole. And the whole invariably involves a Palestinian village or family who owns an orchard or spring which would look might fine with some sprightly new tile-roofed settler homes sitting on that land.
The settlers have theft in their heart, which means that Israel is a nation built on theft. And you cannot separate settlerism from Zionism (as practiced by the Israeli political élite) or Israeli national identity. They are interchangeable. That is why I despair that any Israeli leader would have the political will to make a virtual political suicide pact to extirpate the settlers as a power base within Israel. For that is what it will take. There can be no compromise, no saying that settlers may be criminals but not terrorists as Bibi does. Someone’s got to look this scourge in the eye and say: we’ve seen the enemy and he is us. Until then, you’re just talking about window-dressing.
I’ve been watching the bitter unfolding of a vendetta between the Israeli government and Tom Friedman, who’s writing increasingly vitriolic prose about the Netanyahu government. The spectacle of Israel’s liberal Zionist forward cadre turning its back on the current government in a most public and disconcerting way is almost a joy to behold. Not that Friedman has grown much wiser from the thrashing. He’s still touting Fayyadism as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But as far as his analysis of the current Israeli government, he’s quite acute on that score.
The problem of course for liberal Zionists like Friedman is that they hold out hope that Israel can save itself, which I no longer believe. It will be interesting to watch for any evolution in Friedman’s thinking on that score.
Vast majority of the people whom you call “settlers” condemn recent attack on IDF.
Every protest movement attracts various kinds of people, each acting on their own free will. Occupy Wall Street comes to mind. It is very well organized, yet, it attracted all kinds of people. There were drugs, acholgol, and, allegedly, crime.
It is alleged that one of the protesters who worked in OWS kitchen raped a woman who was sleeping in the park.
“These [protesters] are your own kin, your own fellow citizens. They act on your behalf. They ARE you. You cannot deny them. You cannot distance yourself. You cannot say they work for themselves alone.”
By using your argument I could claim that you, Mr. Silverstein, raped that woman or that she was raped on your behalf, which would obviously be a ridiculous claim. But you did indeed rape a lot of logic in your post.
No. That woman was not raped on RS’ behalf, nor to promote his agenda. RS is not a crim, does not promote crime and neither his interests nor his political agenda include criminality.
All this cannot be said about settlers, whose agenda is criminal by definition and thus bound to slide further into ever more violent levels of criminality, facing growing resistance.
.
You don’t have the first clue about OWS. It was as non-violent & drug free as the J14 encampment in Israel. Crime happened on the periphery of the encampments & not within them. No drugs, no violence. All the rest is right wing mythologizing.
The settler movement has at its heart theft of Palestinian patrimony. OWS does not. When theft & crime are at the heart of an enterprise violence, murder & other crimes aren’t far behind. OWS doesn’t advocate stealing from anyone, not even the 1%.
Stop w nonsense about alleged rapes perpetrated by alleged phanthom individuals. I deal in facts & credible sources. Do NOT offer conjecture, theory, allegations, etc. unless supported by fact.
You can allege that I’m a Martian from outer space for all I care. But for even using the term “rape” in connection with my name, even in hypothetical terms, you are moderated. Yr next outrage will end up with you banned.
Bravo, Sanych
This isn’t a soccer match. We don’t root for teams or score points. If you have something substantive to say, say it. Otherwise, leave the rooting to soccer matches, not here.
My post following a Philip Weiss article outlining Israeli outrages he had personally observed:
“Thank you Mr.Weiss for your insightful article.
Unfortunately for me, your article has caused me to lose all hope for any kind of a resolution to this intractable I/P mess – resignation – they’ve won. With the Israeli right-wing having gained substantial popular support and any left-wing opposition not only rendered impotent but also demonized, the goal of a long-term “status quo” together with continual settlement-building has become unassailable.
The knowledge that your disturbing vignettes as well as any others of a similar nature will never , ever, get even the slightest mention in the MSM presents a huge barrier – if no one knows, no one will care.
My professional colleagues are all highly-educated persons trained in critical thought, well-read and current about national and international affairs. Yet to most of them my advancing of the Palestinian cause and criticism of Israeli actions and policies are considered to be rants of a possibly anti-semitic nature – if there is no hope of persuading them, there is no hope of a change of attitudes of the general population.
So, with the knowledge that the majority of Israelis favour the current situation and that the politics and MSM of the US, Canada and Britain are utterly in Israel’s corner, resignation and depression result.”
You write:
“The key is outside intervention”
But you do not suggest what that outside intervention ought to be – and from whom.
If Israel cannot save itself, then who or what from the outside can save them?
Based on what you have written about the powers that be in the US, I can’t imagine that you think that salvation will come from the American government – so where then and in what form?
Who or what entity is interested in and capable of bringing about the transformation in Israel that you passionately believe must take place?
And what can your readers and supporters do to help?
Unlike the ’60s, when Israel suffered political isolation but enjoyed popular support throughout western democracies, the situation now has flipped.
What forced the old SA to change was international public opinion which evolved into public action and forced the political powers to take notice.
I doubt this will happen now, but the chance exists. Otherwise, Israel is likely to self destruct, leaving behind ruins inland reinforced antisemitism abroad.
Sharon lives! Well, he isn’t dead yet, actually, just back on Sycamore Farm, but not likely to regain consciousness. Not that unconsciousness ever stopped some notable American political figures from being in office–I am thinking of two notable Presidents since Eisenhower.
The Settlers, especially the Hilltop Youth, but also their support in many quarters of the broader settler movement have learned from the disengagement. On the one hand the Yesha council can condemn settler violence, but then they show up on Israeli TV and justify it–as Daniella Weiss did recently on Channel 10.
I can’t imagine Israel being able to succesfully carry out another disengagement, with the steady infiltration of national-religious officers into the top ranks of the army, and the settlers assasinating those officers who do try to carry out evacuation orders (and there is plenty of incitement to make that believable).
So, unless America grows balls, Israel will slide, slowly, into a Balkan state of affairs. Maybe that’s the long term, and grim prognosis, or maybe, like the Six Day War, another war can suddenly change the course of events for the better. But I doubt it.
RE: “There would be no Hilltop Youth, no Baruch Marzel, no Yigal Amir without the prior approval offered by Israel’s power élite to the Greater Israel-Gush Emunim movement.” ~ R.S.
ALSO SEE: Fighting Settlers’ Impunity and Immunity, by Pierre Klochendler, Inter Press Service, 12/16/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://original.antiwar.com/klochendler/2011/12/15/fighting-settlers-impunity-and-immunity/
* RE: The Israeli government’s “institutional lawbreaking”
BRANDEIS: Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis elaborated in Olmstead v. United States (1928): “In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
I disagree with some of the posts today. I don’t see proof that the Israeli government is in collusion with settler lawbreaking. I believe they were taken by surprise when settlers attacked an Israeli army post. It’s a red light that even Netanyahu won’t tolerate. Secondly, there is a general consensus (supported by polls) among Israelis accepting a 2 state solution to the conflict (which begs the question why you don’t see any polls indicating a two-state solution acceptance by the majority of Palestinians.) Nevertheless, if a real peace deal is put infront of the Israeli public, the hilltop settlers will have to stay within the future Palestine or retreat to the settlement blocks that according to President Obama will be part of Israel in the so called “land swaps”. I would not risk the lives of Israeli cops and soldiers to fight and remove zealots from the outsposts.
Of course he’ll tolerate it. Even if they arrest someone, try & convict them, they’ll receive an insignificant sentence. No one in this far right mob wants to make settlers accountable.
I don’t give a crock about what polls say Israelis believe about 2 states. Those same polls say Israelis don’t believe there will ever be peace. Why are you making me repeat myself. Don’t you read the post before you comment. what matters is that they don’t believe peace will come so they can say they believe in 2, 3 or even 4 state solutions. It’s no skin off their backs. It’s also why Bibi can lie claiming he supports 2 states. It’s all a big charade.
As for Palestinian polls, there are a myriad which you somehow missed saying that Palestinians would support a 2 state solution, though given how insane Israeli policy is, I’m not sure why.
Just remember what you said about “not giving a crock about what Israeli polls say” when you start quoting me polls taken by the hardly unbiased Geneva Agreement people several years ago saying that “a majority of Israelis in a poll accept the ‘right of return’ of refugees or the division of Jerusalem.
You are always telling us that the majority of Israelis supposedly agree with you”, even though the Right has won most of the elections since 1977.
At least you admit in this last comment that you are totally out of synch with Israeli public opinion.
Words have meanings. Propaganda takes words and distorts them in order to elicit emotional responses in the reader so as to further a political agenda.
A pogrom is where a mob burns down villages and towns and kills many of the residents. None of these “extreme right-wingers” have done anything like that. What they have done may be described as “hooliganism”, or “vandalism”.
Terrorists are people who place bombs in public places in order to kill as many people as possible or carry out assassinations. None of these “extreme right-wingers” have done anything like that.
It is true that they have thrown rocks at the security forces, and this is a criminal act, but it is not generally considered “terrorism”. IF it is, then you have to consider what the Left-wing protesters do at Bil’in and Nabi Saleh to be terrorism as well, regardless of which side “started it”. Tamimi who was killed there was throwing rockets when he was killed so according to your defintion, he was a terrorist.
Bernard Avishai has pointed out that if you want to consider these Israelis to be terrorists and to be subject to martial law, then the same will be applied to Left-wing protestors as well. Read this:
http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/2011/12/netanyahus-alignment-of-law-in.html
BTW-Yigal Amir was not a “settler”. He lived in Herzliyya.
We’ve already gone over this ground here. Pls. don’t repeat arguments that’ve happened earlier. Israeli political leaders & ministers have used the term “pogrom” and “lynching.” So complain to them, not to me. As for calling the settlers terrorists, the shoe fits so they’ll have to wear it. The settlers have murdered many Palestinians in cold blood, hence they are terrorists. They have maimed, shot & beaten others to a pulp. Even readers of this blog have gotten the treatment from them ending up with broken ribs & bones and in the hospital. No, if you want to pimp for your friends you’ll have to do it elsehwere.
The settler right is far, far more dangerous to Israel than any leftist. As for subjecting people to martial law, you have nothing to worry about. This far right government won’t subject rightists to martial law. They would subject leftists to it if they could get away with it. But the outcry would be so severe from outside that they don’t even try…yet.
I don’t care where Amir lived. He was a settler in his heart, his views, his everything.
“I don’t care where Amir lived. He was a settler in his heart, his views, his everything”
yeah. we know. you don’t care about facts.
I think all of you need a refresher course of Hasbara….your arguments are pathetic. But then again, it must be difficult to admit you’re a bunch of racist, fascist, killers and thieves.
Who are you saying are a “bunch of racist, fascist killers and thieves”?
Do you mean the settlers or Israelis in general?
… Or Jews?
There is no question in my mind what “all of you” means…
This is a grave comment rule violation. Read the rules. I almost think this has to be troll-generated. If you publish junk like again you’ll be moderated.
You’ve now been moderated.
(1) The fact that Israeli ministers ministers abuse the language is no excuse for anyone else to do it. You appear in the world media now and you have an EXTRA obligation to be exact in your use of language.
(2) The definition you give of “settler” at the end of your comment means that you consider it to be a synonym for “Nazi” or something like that. The word “settler” as used in Israel, i.e., Mitnahel means someone who lives across the Green Line. You are then ascribing certain beliefs and actions to an entire class of people, the majority of which do NOT agree with. Your use of the term that way makes Rav Froman, whom you happen to like for some reason, a Nazi according to your definition. Now, is he a Nazi or isn’t he a Nazi? Such a gross generalization turns out to make the term meaningless. How about “right-wing extremist”?
Nonsense. You have an obligation not to be a hapless stooge of the settler extremists, and not be offer obfuscation & justification for their atrocities. I didn’t say settlers were Nazis & you’ve been around the comment threads here long enough to know what happens to people who put words like that into my mouth. I can’t remember whether I’ve ever banned you, but if you try that again you won’t like the result if you want to continue commenting here.
I didn’t say Froman was a Nazi. I didn’t say every settler was evil. But as a class they do a great injustice to Israel just by their presence across the Green Line absent a peace agreement w the Palestinians. If there was such an agreement, then some settlers could possibly live across the Green Line under Palestinian sovereignty. But now, they are just a match on kerosene.
I never said “a majority of Israelis” polled support ROR or division of Jerusalem. I said that about 40% supported the overall provisions of the Geneva Accords, which call for a defined version of ROR (about 25,000 returnees approx.) & sharing Jerusalem.
You’ve tried at least 8 times now to get into an argument with me over the years about whether my views are in the majority or minority in Israel. This issue interests be about as much as root canal. And if you continue trying get a rise out of me on this subject I won’t take kindly to it. Get off it.
A settler is an Israeli who lives illegally on stolen Palestinian land. Some settlers are also terrorists. All are law-breakers.
overall provisions of the Geneva Accords, which call for a defined version of ROR (about 25,000 returnees approx.) & sharing Jerusalem…why would the Palestinians support this, when they could potentially get all of Palestine