Gush Katif Residents Clueless, Ironic

Former residents of the Gush Katif settlement in Gaza, which was evacuated in The Disengagement of 2005, ask to go back to their homes, which actually don't exist anymore. Ynet says they protested yesterday at the Kissufim border crossing. Former Gaza settler Ophir Briner says:

the government acted "cruelly" in the aftermath of what he referred to as the "expulsion." Briner said he tells his young children, "We lived in Gush Katif, which is a part of the Land of Israel. We were forced to leave, and now we are waiting to return."

Sucks, doesn't it?

Israeli News Got the Memo

I have been saying for a long time that it is the Israeli people who need to change their minds about the conflict. The rest of the world is basically on board with the idea of a Palestinian state and an end to the daily human rights abuses that have been documented for anyone with internet access to see.

But the question is how to reach Israelis? They are terribly mistrustful of outsiders, especially those who don't speak Hebrew and attempt to criticize their country. It must come from inside, and now, with groups like Peace Now swelling in size, I feel a quickening on the horizon. More and more Israelis will jump on board the human rights movement, like whites who demonstrated for civil rights in 1960s America.

And here, a ray of hope. This segment was on the Israeli evening news. Bold, unapologetic, and extremely sympathetic to the Peace Now activists it focuses on.

The Realities of West Bank Settlements

As part of my quest to try to explain the complicated situation of Jewish Israelis who settle in the West Bank, I urge you to read Seth Freedman's article about Bayit Echad in the Guardian. He touches on a very important aspect of the settler experience and reminds us that there are very real and human reasons that they continue to live there. We cannot ask anyone to change without first addressing their concerns.

"If we don't make peace, the Middle East will explode", he warns. "We can't live by the sword forever; if we don't deal with the Palestinians [over a negotiating table], they'll return to terror, and no army can beat terror; only diplomacy can." Raz is, by definition, a settler – albeit an incredibly reluctant one. He is desperate to relocate his family west of the Green Line, but economic conditions make such a move financially unviable, and he wants the government to enact legislation to help him.

Read the rest here.

Hebron Settlers Need a Nap

My readers may remember me writing about the beleaguered city of Hebron in the West Bank. I visited it this summer and noted the forced segregation between Israeli and Palestinian residents, the curfews that only applied to the latter, and the ubiquitous anti-Muslim graffiti. 650 Israeli residents in this city of 180,000 Palestinians are guarded by Israeli troops in fortified enclaves in order to maintain their position.

In April of 2007, an Israeli family confiscated a house in Hebron which, at that time, was occupied by a Palestinian family. The Israeli family claimed they were the real owners of the house and, against the wishes of the original residents, began living in the house. Almost immediately, the house became known as Beit Hameriva, House of Contention. Last week, that's November of 2008, Israel's High Court found that the Israeli occupants of Beit Hameriva had forged ownership documents and ordered them to vacate the property by noon of the following Wednesday. Of course, they didn't leave, and nobody made them.

The Palestinian residents of Hebron were not happy and since, again, Israel has blocked Palestinians from pursing their rights through legal channels, tensions have been high this week. However, according to government spokesmen, it was not Palestinians who were responsible for this week's wave of violence.

Ha'aretz says:

The Defense Ministry said it would avoid the use of force in the evacuation and would try to urge the settlers to leave on their own accord. By late Wednesday, the house was still not evacuated and the settlers' protests grew hotter throughout the city.

During the protests, some settlers began to attack Palestinian locals while others wounded an IDF soldier by spraying turpentine at him as he tried to stop them from throwing stones at Palestinians.

Activists also punctured the tires of police and military jeeps stationed nearby.

The settlers also scribbled graffiti around Hebron, including spraying 'Mohammed Pig' on the walls of a local mosque and on Palestinian homes nearby.

To see a Ha'aretz article from when the Beit Hameriva was born, including information about the legalities, go here.

And, a refresh of what Hebron looks like:

Operation Price Tag: Settlers Organize their Attacks

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Israeli settlers living in illegal West Bank outposts sometimes attack when soldiers come to evict them or take away their building supplies.

One such resident, Itai Zer, tells the New Zealand Herald that these are not uncoordinated attacks in response to isolated incidents. These attacks are all part of "Operation Price Tag," an effort designed to disorient both Palestinian villagers and IDF soldiers so that outpost evacuations must be postponed.

Recommended methods reportedly include arson and road-blocking to force troops to abandon the evacuation and deal with the protesters’ actions, as well as demonstratively entering Palestinian villages - a tactic used repeatedly in the village of Asira al Qibliya.

Due to these acts of what some would call protest and others would call terrorism, 50% of the olive trees in the village of Burin, adjacent to the Yitzhar settlement, have been burned recently, and with the olive harvest just around the corner, some residents wonder where their livelihood will come from.

Yitzhar settlers also poison and shoot livestock and cut telephone and power lines in their effort to keep the situation chaotic. Some of these protesters draw the line at attacking people, but say they wouldn't stop others if they chose to attack Palestinian villagers directly.

There are nearly 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, from all different walks of life. Some are hardcore Jewish ideologues who seek to secure the entire West Bank for Israel in the fulfillment of a biblical promise. Others simply moved there in search of cheaper housing.

Palestinians acting in reprisal of the settler attacks have suffered doubly. Throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there have been four times as many casualties on the Palestinian side with eight times as many children killed or injured. Recent events prove no different.

Two weeks ago, Yitzhar settlers went on a rampage in Assira al-Kubliyeh, following an arson and stabbing attack that injured a 9-year-old boy from the settlement. Dozens of stone-throwing settlers, some firing in the air, smashed windows of several homes and overturned a car in the village. Six villagers were hurt, including a 17-year-old girl shot in the right arm. Yesh Din said Israeli soldiers did little to prevent the riot.

Later that week, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot to death while throwing a firebomb at Yitzhar.

Unfortunately, by not protecting the Palestinians, the IDF leaves them no choice but to retaliate for the settler violence, a natural act which nevertheless only hurts them once again and reinforces the settlers' mission to expel them.

From Another Angle

In covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I've heard a lot of complaints from both sides. Why can't they just... is a common prefix for such complaints, framed as questions. And they're logical questions, ones I've had myself.

Well, there's an article on Haaretz today that might answer one of those questions. And this article is by no means out of the ordinary.

The jist is this:

Some 90 right-wing activists on Thursday besieged an Israel Defense Forces post north of Ramallah, in protest against the civil administration's decision to remove construction supplies from an illegal outpost in the West Bank.

The settlers rallied around the civil administration officials, pierced the tires of a supervisor's car, and sicked a dog on one of the soldiers.

Israeli settlers were about to start building a house, or houses, in an unapproved area, so the IDF showed up and carted their construction materials away. This may partly answer the question, Why can't they just stop letting in more settlers?

Illegal settlements have been dealt with in a multitude of ways. Sometimes the government ignores them. Sometimes the government gives passive support. Sometimes the government gives active support, like providing IDF guards to protect the settlers. Sometimes the government evicts them. No doubt the Israeli government's reaction to each settler has more to do with the strategic placement of that particular settlement, and whether it supports the land grab, but illegal settlers are not always supported wholeheartedly.

However, when the IDF does take any action against Israeli settlers, the backlash is fierce, both immediately and long term. In the short term, you have attacks like in the Haaretz article above. You have settlers spitting, yelling curses, and the like, at their IDF brethren. Calling them traitors. In the long term, well.

In 1947, David Ben-Gurion struck a deal with the orthodox Agudath party. In exchange for implementing Jewish law as national law in the new state of Israel, Agudath supported Ben-Gurion politically and he became the well-loved first Prime Minister of Israel.

Ever since then, the orthodox Jews in Israel have had extraordinary power over the government. One cannot win office without their support. And once in office, one would be swimming against the tide to try to accomplish anything without their support.

And they support Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

So any Israeli politician who dares to remove settlers from Palestinian areas will first have the soldiers they send spit on, cursed, and possibly beaten, and then they will be booed out of office.

This is the state of affairs.