It must be interesting to live in the world of those people who think that the only problem in the Middle East is the settlers in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). How simple their lives must be.
They can ignore the decades-long terrorism of the Palestinians and their proudly-stated determination to destroy the Jewish homeland, the famous ‘no peace, no recognition, no negotiation’ of Israel’s neighbours, the suicide bombings that have blown packed school buses to pieces and slaughtered survivors of the Nazi holocaust as they sat at their Passover seder table, the Hamas rockets fired at kindergartens, the kids brainwashed to hate Jews, the kidnapped Gilad Shalit, the Iranian project to wipe Israel off the map in a nuclear holocaust…
Apparently, none of the above is a problem or obstacle to peace. No, the real problem is a small band of Jews living peacefully on land that they have a unique historical connection with, land which constitutes less than 1.7 per cent of the West Bank. It’s all their fault apparently.
Sadly, it’s not just Israel’s enemies who are increasingly positioning the settlers as the real problem: some of Israel’s supporters do too.
I accept that the settlers’ presence is contentious and this post is not intended as a full analysis of the debate, but next time you hear someone blaming the settlers (hello Obama), please consider a few obvious facts…
The settlers have not stolen anyone’s land. In most cases the land they live on was uninhabited before the settlements were built. In many cases settlers live in areas with direct archeological evidence of previous Jewish ownership, sometimes dating back 2,000 years.
As things stand now, both Arabs and Jews are allowed to live and do live on both sides of the ‘green line’. If we removed all the settlements then Arabs would still be allowed to live on both sides of the green line, but Jews would not be. Is that reasonable?
Before a single settlement was built, Israel’s enemies wanted the state and its people destroyed. If every single settlement was removed, Israel’s enemies would still want the state and its people destroyed. So where will that have got us?
Just look at Gaza, all those wonderful people ripped out of their homes in 2005 and what was the response of Hamas? Renewed aggression, which ultimately led to Operation Cast Lead, and thousands of dead. Do we want part two, with Jerusalem facing the rocket fire that the brave people of Sderot faced, and the Arabs of the West Bank facing the inevitable response?
The Palestinians have repeatedly been offered a homeland (in 1936, 1947, 2000 and 2008 for instance) and each time have turned it down. How is that the fault of the settlers? How is that the fault of anyone but the Palestinians?
Be honest with yourself: it’s easy to dismiss settlers as ‘religious zealots’ or ‘extremists’. I wonder how many of those who toss out these lazy descriptions have ever met or spoken to a single settler?
Jews have been made scapegoats for the world’s problems throughout human history. In a way, the scapegoating of the settlers is but the latest chapter on this. That those who hate Israel and/or the Jews propagate the anti-settler fraud is terrible but to be expected. When ‘friends’ of Israel fall in at their side, it is another matter.
Settlers are not the impediment to peace. Palestinian terrorism is. As is a desire to wipe out Israel. If tomorrow these things stopped permanently, negotiation and then peace would follow promptly. If settlers were uprooted (even all of them), no such thing would happen.
Re your second point – I’ve always wondered that! Why would people think that it’s fair to take all the Jews out of the West Bank, but it’s ok for Arabs to live in every city in Israel? Do those people want the millions of Arabs in Israel to all be crammed into the West Bank?!
& what about the Arab settlers* that the British allowed to flood in unchecked whilst restricting Jewish immigration and turning a blind eye to extermination of European Jewry.
*Now calling themselves “Palestinians”
Chas:
What a well thought out and written “reality check” on the issue. Have you considered offering it to CiF?
Awesome
Yes, darn those pesky Jews that won’t just jump into the Red Sea – of course, when Israel is sliced up into manageable chunks for Mr Obama and handed on a plate to the Arabs (because there are never enough Muslim countries) then the whole world will join hands and sing hymns together…NOT!
There’s only one reason they’ve not jumped into the Red Sea. It would split (again), dry up, and then they’d settle the land there as well….
Very well written post, sir!
Thanks everyone.
No, haven’t thought of sending it to CiF but thanks for the suggestion.
Interesting that none of the Israel ‘supporters’ who routinely criticise and blame the settlers haven’t come to defend themselves.
I should also add that I use the term ‘settlers’ reluctantly, as I feel it is inherently unfair on them. Anyone have any ideas what else we could call them? Israelis, I guess?
Actually, I’m a proud settler. The biblical word for the people who settled the Land of Isreal was “settlers”, the term used by Labor Zionists for the pioneering people who settled Isreal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were “settlers” too. Only now has it been Marxisised, so to speak, to become a negative term. Call me a proud Jew, call me a pioneer, call me a proud settler, I don’t care. I’m fully aware of the greatness, importance and symbolism of my living quarters here in the bedrock of Jewish history. My porch overlooks the path that the Biblical fathers and mothers walked on centuries ago. I overlook town of Bethlehem, where Mother Rachel was buried, and I see the Temple Mount, where King David established the first Kingdom of Judea. The world can say what it wants, the “supporters” of Israel, who care more about what the “world” thinks of them then the truth of todays situation, can also say what they want. The truth is that the world is a safer place because we live here. We are the canary in the mine. If we wouldn’t be here on the frontline, then our enemies who are out to destroy us, would be one step closer to their target, all of Western Civilization. These people don’t want peace, they don’t want Judea and Samaria and they don’t even want Jerusalem, they want much more. Today’s conflict is a religious one, no matter how much people try to deny it. The people running Islam today want to rule the world and conquer Western Civilization. The “Settlers” are the easist scapegoat for them to use to mask that global struggle of theirs and get people to deny what they are really after. No, no peace will come if they uproot us settlers, and no peace will come no matter what Israel does, because the other side doesn’t want peace. Kind of hard to make peace in such a circusmstance. In the meantime, I will enjoy raising my family in the bedrock of Jewish civilization, as a settler here in the Judean hills. You are all more than welcome to visit and see this beautiful and Holy area of Land for yourselves.
It’s kind of funny how the more criticism the settlers get, the more people move into the west bank and the population grows. I quite admire them for not listening to world opinion and doing what is best for them.
I was one of the few in you last post (several months ago) about the unilateral pullout from Gaza who defended it despite the dire consequences it created. Nobody knew then how screwed up the Palrabs could be. I think the Gaza debacle is a testament that the so-called settler issue in Samaria and Judea is a false problem. It is a pretext to a much malign and destructive agenda the Palrabs have ever devised.
Chas, this article should be sent to every newspaper/media outlet here or at least made into posters and pasted up around the country. It’s one of the most articulate analyses of the issue I’ve ever seen. Better still, send it to all those ‘stop-the-genocide-in-Gaza’ groups and wait for the sound of choking on veggie burgers…
I fear that those who sit on the sidelines in this are in for a rude awakening. There are plenty who are both Goyim and Kuffar who think that letting the Jews and the Muslims slug it out here will keep everyone else safe from attack. They haven’t read any further; they don’t understand the real division of the world between Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb.
Praise the Lord, for He has said that He will be victorious.