Our bleeding-heart prime minister

[Jefferson23]

Published 00:52 28.05.10


Netanyahu's efforts to thwart a Palestinian ban on settlement goods are no doubt guided by his concern for the Palestinians.

By Nehemia Shtrasler

How can we rely on those Palestinians? For 43 years, they have been building the settlers' homes with the sweat of their brows, paving roads for them and building their fences, and then suddenly, out of the blue, a boycott? Is that the way for partners to behave? Is that how they pay us back after we educated them for so many years to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water?

The prime minister, too, doesn't understand this ungratefulness. At the Likud faction meeting this week, he complained bitterly about the Palestinian Authority's decision to boycott 500 items produced in the settlements and to halt the work of the 6,000 people who are building settlers' homes. "They think they can do everything they want," the prime minister concluded angrily as his heart bled over the terrible injustice being done to us while the whole world looks on and says nothing.

But really, how can they do this to us? After all, we provide them with work, a living, a good life, wealth and happiness, and they respond with ill feelings. Do they not know that without Arabs it's impossible to build? After all, the boycott could force the settlers to build their homes themselves, and why should the lords of the land suddenly start working in construction? That's only good for the natives. That's why there's an occupation that can supply modern slaves who work for half price, just like during apartheid.

The Yesha Council of settlers also doesn't understand what the boycott is about. It responded with sharp words and denounced the "hostile act." MK Uri Ariel (National Union ) proposed a counter-boycott, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that it was "unacceptable for the Arabs to wage an economic war against us."

remainder in full: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/our-bleeding-heart-prime-minister-1.292703