By Ted Belman
Israel is fulfilling settlers’ expansionist dream says Zvi Bar’el but it is a misleading title. In fact its all about the hated settlers who are destroying democracy.
He argues that in the name of redeeming the land the settlers want “a country in their image. A country where the halakha (religious law ) is the law, the rabbis are judges and the police are their servants. A proper Jewish state.” That’s democracy for you.
He complains that
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“the exiled minority who dwell on rocky hills and in subsidized housing – who, from their place of exile, managed to bend the mother country to their will, to shape its image, to determine its laws, its budget and its foreign policy, and to fence in its citizens with the barbed wire of fascism.”
He is so wrong. The settlers themselves are certainly a minority but their supporters are not. Besides there is no prohibition on a minority fighting for their vision of the state. The left does it all the time. If this isn’t democracy, what is?
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“The milestones that led to the establishment of their state are scattered along the 44 years of their subterfuge. Some of them stand rusty and crooked, like interesting clues for political archaeologists, others are fresh and shiny, like the Boycott Law, the Nakba Law, the recognition of Ariel College’s status as a university, the Loyalty Law, the Admissions Committee Law – which will also soon become habit and a way of life, as though there was no other life beforehand. Democracy will then become a “phantom pain.”
He goes on to complain that the settlers used salami tactics, a slice at a time, and in so doing they disguised their goals. Nonsense, their goals are transparent and never hidden.
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“The “settlement enterprise” knew how to camouflage itself. Only a few more hours of prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs, begged the settlers; just let us clean up the site of the Avraham Avninu synagogue in Hebron; only a small and intimate neighborhood in Kiryat Arba; just a small increase in the population of the neighborhood; only an outpost and an access road. And as though in a military diversion exercise, the “enemy” – Israeli governments, center-left Knesset members, various peace movements – bought this camouflaged plan as though it were the real plan.”
So what was the real plan?. He writes, “the conquest of the State of Israel.”
He thinks that the American Jewish Diaspora should tell the Israeli government how to behave, what policy to follow and which liberal values to adopt. But complains that American Jews didn’t dare intervene accepting that
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“The values of that state are no longer the values of that same Judaism; the dream of its settlers is no longer their dream. So the American Diaspora made way for the other diaspora, the militaristic, tyrannical one – the one that dictates from a distance of a few kilometers, but from the depth of the abyss, the new values of the State of Israel.”
Essentially he is complaining that Israel is worshipping a different G-d, before it was the G-d of Socialism and universalism and now its the G-d or Nationalism and particularism. He can’t stand it.
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These are the values that are imported to Israel from the territories and that have received the protection of the law. Because in the settlements there was no need for a law in order to exclude Arab settlers, even though the area is state land; in the settlements there was no need for the Nakba Law – it was imposed by physical strength. The Loyalty Law is certainly not relevant, since it is the citizens of Israel who are required to swear allegiance to the settlements and not vice versa. Nor was there need for the Boycott Law, which establishes the supremacy of the interests of the settlements over those of the mother country.
He believes this policy of confidence, national purpose and strength will lead to another Masada. Au Contraire.
UNGARes 181 states that no Jew can choose to live in the Arab State and no Arab can choose to live in the Jewish State AFTER recognition of each State by the other. The PLA/HAMAS had the opportunity to recognise the Jewish State but have refused to do so. Unfortunately for them, Jews have the ability to decide where they want to live, whereas those from outside Israel proper do not. Insh’allah. The Settler’s have every right to “choose” to live wherever they please, given their ability to so do. Yes, recognition of the “Jewish State” does away with the mythical “right of return”, refusal to recognise the same will result in the continued shrinking of the area originally set aside for negotiation. Don’t like the pressure? Blame the UN.
As to a minority, living in rocky hills, ruling the majority… Go complain about Hezbollah, after all that is precisely what they do. Oh that is right, “non-state actors” aren’t subject to International Law? Nor is the State responsible for their actions? So why, precisely, is Israel responsible for the actions of “non-state” settlers and why on earth are the “non-state” settlers subject to International Law? Is it because they aren’t Arabs? Or merely because they are Jewish?
LT COL HOWARD Said:
LT COL HOWARD Said:
“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.”
– Winston Churchill, “House of Many Mansions” speech
Zvi Bar’el does not understand that he is not in charge of the world. Most of his objections are to items that were democratically decided.
I showed his comments to my Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, Lebanese and Egyptian counterparts. Included was the chief of communications for Hezbollah. His comment was “with Zvi Bar’el we don’t have to condemn the Israelis, he does the job for us.”
The Arab League and the Palestinian Authority have sought to divide the Israelis by focusing on the settlers. Be assured that if the settlers are forced to leave the West Bank ,the West Bank will become Jew-free. So will East Jerusalem. And if you read all the Palestinian surveys and polling you will find out that their objective is to make all of Israel Jew-free. Tel Aviv and Haifa are next.
Zvi Bar’el and his ilk are complicit in the campaign to destroy Israel. Be warned —first the settlers and then you !
Hmmmm… well we know about Ha’aretz…
How to deal with leftists? Here’s a very interesting comment from one of the people in the Belmont Club blog:
No room left for mercy. Sounds good to me…
Decay of the House of Israel
by Uri Zvi Greenberg
[1936 – The following are excerpts]
They could have heroically realized the dreams of old
and become rulers here, like all other peoples on earth …
The stench of those who run from Mastery
to hide in the shade cast by Josephus, on the ground of David!
The stench of their “reasonableness” so hopefully offered
by those who pity Arab killers but not their own brothers
whose blood is shed so near their homes …
They who are willing to be ashamed by any Gentile
and are ready to persecute the brother who dares reveal the shame
who dares stir them to Mastery, plain and simple: like all other peoples on earth.
There’s no other land like this on earth!
They came not to build a State, only a haven
that doesn’t demand a battle march, a ready soul
“Life is easier without Malkhut David, without Sinai, without a bush that burns!”
@ BlandOatmeal:
Hypocrite! You have hundreds of comments maligning these very people, their religion and their rabbinic leaders.
It appears that to Zvi Bar’el, “The Settlers” are to his imagination of “Israel”, what “The Jews” were to Hitler — They cause all the problems in the world, simply by being who they are. With that in mind, it’s really quite an honor to be criticized by Bar’el. I wish I could become a settler, just to draw his ire.
the left’s tragedy: it’s hard to see oneself loosing. they are loosing although they have concentrated ALL might in their little hands. Well, the soviets fell, romania’s ciacucescu fell, mubarak fell, the next is the Israli left. -:)