Israel has made settlers of all its citizens

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent
Last Update: 09/12/2009 12:44

Would any of the settlers who opposed the Civil Administration inspectors this week be living in the territories had the governments of Israel not established and encouraged them? Would the Gush Katif evacuees have moved to mobile homes in Ariel in the expectation of spacious permanent housing had the government clearly declared that this was forbidden - because the settlements will be evacuated in the near future for a peace agreement - and that evacuation-compensation money would not be paid to anyone who moves to the West Bank?

Do the settlers clashing with the forces of law and order not know that those who have committed crimes - from racist threats and blocking roads, to wholesale cutting down of trees, arson and beating and murdering Palestinians - have not been investigated or have been forgiven and forgotten with a wink.

The settlers' feeling of betrayal is natural. Haven't the state and its institutions taught us that the settler is superior to everyone else?

Yes. The settler, in fact, is us.

The freeze orders will not change what exists now: an elite state for Jews and a sub-space for Palestinians - truncated, cut up, asphyxiated.

The distinction in the mind nowadays between the state of Israel and the settlers is artificial.

So is the distinction between the bad and the good, the violent and the law-abiding, the residents of the Migron outpost and the residents of Etzion Bloc settlements and the territories that have been annexed to Jerusalem, or those who live to the West of the separation fence.

Those who laud the freeze orders are thinking about relations with the United States.

The subordinated and occupied do not factor into their calculations. And indeed the land that was stolen from them in Beit Jala (for the benefit of Gilo) is like the land of Qalqilyah that Alfei Menashe coveted and is coveting.

The legitimacy of the settlement blocs exists only in the Israeli consensus. In reality, it is these blocs and Ma'aleh Adumim that are destroying the chance of a fair peace, because they and their separated roads are laying the groundwork for a crippled Palestinian political entity....

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=israel+has+made+settlers&itemNo=1133759

[ProgressiveMuslim]

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