The Extreme Ambitions of West Bank Settlers
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
When facing an existential crisis, people unite for security.
"in order to unify people, give them a common enemy"
Specially when your land is being taken, your houses are being bulldozed, your hospitals and schools bombed, and you deserve it because “you didn’t do anything to prevent becoming a human shield”, or should I say, because you are “an animal”.
Israeli authorities built iron dome to protect their citizens.
What did Hamas do to protect their existence, rockets, suicide attackers and hostage taking?
Struggling to find the equivalence.
To me it seems like Hamas is a puppet of foreign powers who want to destroy or harass Israel, not save Palestine. Hamas actions are designed to trigger an extreme response, but now that it’s here… most of the fallout is happening to people who don’t deserve it, don’t support Hamas, and simply don’t want to die.
Israel is currently digging a grave, but they are going to bury their reputation along with their enemies.
That's not true:
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-sh...:
> Nevertheless, there is widespread popular appeal for competing armed Palestinian factions, including those involved in the attack. Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)—though Gazans who express this opinion of Hamas are fewer than the number of Gazans who have a positive view of Fatah (64%).
> But it is organizations like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lion’s Den that receive the most widespread popular support in Gaza. About three quarters of Gazans express support for both groups, including 40% who see the Lion’s Den in a “very positive” light, an attitude shared by a similar percentage of West Bank residents.
The site you source says in the first paragraph “ (62%) supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel.”
Also from the same or similar reports.
73% believed the Hamas government to be corrupt.
> https://theconversation.com/hamas-was-unpopular-in-gaza-befo...
When asked how they would vote if presidential elections were held in Gaza and the ballot featured Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and Marwan Barghouti, an imprisoned member of the central committee of Fatah, the party led by Abbas, only 24 percent of respondents said they would vote for Haniyeh
> https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-real...
It does not seem that Hamas is actually popular, however the Palestinian people are not living in a free democracy and are not being given other candidates to evaluate.
While you’re trying to find equivalence, please don’t forget which people are being colonized and live in apartheid.
Why are you trying to justify occupation?
It’s the explanation of why Israel ought to have the land that may or may not be racist. For example if someone says they have right to it by conquest, then that’s not a racist argument… it’s “just” barbaric.
So please don’t assume, as many people do, that all Jews everywhere — or all Israel-supporters — subscribe to these same views. Many of us disagree with them as vehemently as you do.
Look at the previous protests where palestinian protestors were vilified from all sides.
There have been massive (unprecedented in Israeli history) demonstrations in Israel for the last 10 months against this terrible government that formed and their attempts at destroying the country.
The protests were not about the genocide and apartheid. They were mostly about the interal power struggle, which is all well and good, but not protesting against genocide and apartheid per se.
The protests were against the government as a whole and many of their actions including their messianic ambitions which include settlements (was a main point of discussion, though sometimes overshadowed by their attempt to weaken the legal institutions).
I really don't want to get into politics on HN, but there is no genocide nor apartheid, this is just Hammas propaganda. Israel has the means to kill Palestinians and it doesn't. There are Muslims and Arabs in the Israeli legislative body, including ones that say that Israel shouldn't exist. How is this apartheid? Anyhow, even with the above, there were in fact a lot of pro Palestinian and anti settlement demonstrations during these demonstrations. How do I know? I've been to these demonstrations and saw the signs and Palestinian flags.
There were indeed some Palestinian flags in the protests, but they weren't exactly warmly welcomed. I'm of course relying on what I read.
The UN still hasn't condemned the October 7th attack nor Hammas's use of civilians as human shields. Not sure about the rest. So I wouldn't call them an unbiased authority.
Politicians in Israel have called for ethnic cleansing, fringe crazy politicians. Marjorie Taylor green blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers. I hope you don't let that paint your views on the US legislative bodies.
As for different laws about ethnicities (probably the source for calls of apartheid): it's very limited, the main thing is that diaspora Jews can get citizenship automatically. This law is to help Jews anywhere escape from antisemitism. If you're an Israeli citizen however (muslim, jewish, christian or whatever), you have equal rights under the law.
It's easy to parrot things like apartheid, but it's more like 0.001% apartheid in the most technical sense, and not what people mean it when they say this word.
As for the comparison to western democracies: I think Israel is doing very well, even compared to some of the world's oldest democracies (France/Swiss multiple Muslim related bans, US during the trump administration, etc.), but the people drawing this comparison usually advocate for replacing it with Hammas which is a proper terrorist organization that advocates for killing all non Muslims, killing lgbt, etc. It's a classic Utopia fallacy gone to the extreme.
The UN does not seem to have condemned many of the actions of the Irish Republicans Army either.
Some commenters use terminology like “apartheid” and “civil unrest” to describe this situation, so perhaps people in the UN also view this as a internal issue and they don’t want to comment on domestic terror?
Even if it was the case though, the UN has condemned Israel multiple times, why the difference? Shouldn't they avoid condemning Israel too as it's an internal dispute?
For an examples, look at how many commenters on this thread are calling this an “internal dispute” even though they fully support Palestine.
Some Palestinian supporters don’t even recognize Hamas as the government of the Gaza Strip. How can a country exist without a government? People are just in support of the people.
Let’s take as a hypothetical, some Waco style paramilitary starts terrorist sticks in the US, and in response the US military begins shelling Chicago night and day killing thousands more civilians and the terrorists ever did.
Should the UN come out and censure both sides? The terrorists are just domestic criminals, and the UN doesn’t have a particular interest in that. However turning your military against helpless civilians is something the UN does care about.
I’m not sure this fits 100% but it’s the logic I’m following.
Unfortunately, that's kind of the point. The UN has issued twice as many condemnations of Israel as of the rest of the world combined.
Some parts of the UN do important work -- UNESCO, WHO, FAO, etc. But they are unreliable when it comes to matters of justice. They had to retire the predecessor to the Human Rights Commission because it was dominated by countries who commit lots of abuses, and the new version isn't really any better.
In particular the UN can't be trusted when it comes to Israel. There are a lot of Islamic countries, and they have made a lot of allies for the specific purpose of condemning Israel. And since Israel is a key ally of the US, it becomes the focus of anti-UN sentiment as well.
That's not to justify everything Israel does. Far from it. It would be better if there were an organization capable of evaluating the situation objectively, to sort out the truth under a barrage of propaganda from all sides. Instead, we get the UN offering meaningless and predictable condemnations.
Whether one calls it apartheid or not, Israelis and their government should find a way to resolve the problem of protecting settlers at the cost of others. Otherwise, it can create a huge backlash across the world: (a) Al Jazeera and social media have showed these to the outside world (b) support for Israel is waning in the West--especially among liberals (c) there is even less support for Israel among the younger generation in the West, so expect more backlash from the future policy makers.
I think the settlements are terrible, and we should destroy all of them, but this is just classic PR switcheroo. As I said, West Bank is not Gaza, they have a different government, the West Bank is flourishing and the quality of life there is great. Leaving Gaza and removing all the Israeli forces from there ended up being worst, not better for the people of Gaza.
There are so many people out there who explain Hamas' attack in terms of these: (a) Israel subverting two-state solution (b) apartheid in the West bank in order to protect settlers. This view point has many supporters even among non-Muslims in the West. What do you say about that to those who condemn Hamas' attack on Oct 7 and who also subscribe to the foregoing explanation?
But Gaza is not the West Bank. They are geographically and politically separate. Gaza is in the opposite position: Israel withdrew its settlements. They allowed Hamas to take over the government. Some claim that was a deliberate choice by that same right-wing government, to make it seem as if Palestinians were incapable of governing themselves. (I cannot vouch for the truth of that, but it's clear that Israel did not approach its abandonment of Gaza entirely in good faith.)
Nonetheless, there's no way to justify Hamas' attack on October 7 in terms of the West Bank situation. It has nothing to do with sympathy over settlers. It's entirely due to a dedicated campaign of genocide against Jews, explicitly referenced in the Hamas charter.
What's happening in the West Bank might be described as apartheid. But the situation in Gaza makes it clear that it's not mere racism. There is a genuine threat, not just of attack but of atrocities. I think that makes it harder to justify comparisons to South Africa, which deliberately gloss over real horrors. It's hard to attribute that deliberate ignorance to anything other than antisemitism.
I am not justifying Hamas' attack on Israeli people. What does a justification do, anyway? It transforms unjust acts into just acts using some or another theory, ideology, etc. With this side comment out of the way, how do you explain Hamas' attacks, major support for Hamas from Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem? One explanation most people seem to accept is that folks in Gaza are bottled up, such a pressure cooker just blew up. Another related explanation: Israel has subverted two-state solution, leading to pressure cooker situation.
I have no problems in accepting the claim that they are anti-Jewish and that they don't want a Jewish state in the Middle East. That's what many a muslim would say in private conversations. This discussion can't be had in the West today, due to political correctness: when Islam is power or when Islam dominates a society, they have problems with non-Islamic people (history of Islam shows that). When Islam is in minority or lacks the power, different tunes are sung.
This has to be one of the most startling claims I've ever seen on HN. Here's a graph that slightly contradicts your claim. https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts/
This makes it very hard to take anything else you say at face value.
Edit: I looked at this source closer, this is a random blog by an obvious biased source (general credibility aside). Using pictures of Palestinians in the header, saying that there's strong evidence that Israel is behind the bombing at the hospital parking lot, and still claiming that there were ~500 casualties there. Again, going back to the lame death machine argument: on one hand Israel is bad and using precise bombs that take down building, but on the other they somehow attacked a hospital parking lot with a weak bomb that caused little to no damage? Nevermind the ample evidence to the contrary of these claims, just this should give you a hint by how unlikely it is.
This is the full quote you originally cut. It is obvious that this refers to killing in the context genocide (the same way the rest of the text refers to apartheid).
Even if you originally thought in earnest that I meant any killing (which is obviously ridiculous), I made it clear multiple times that this was not what I meant.
If their goal was to maximize Palestinian civilian casualties, it would be a lot worse.
Gaza is an incredibly densely populated area, within range of Israeli artillery, with complete Israeli air and naval superiority.
If Israel wanted to, it likely has the conventional means to flatten every structure in Gaza. Given there are ~2.5M people there, that would produce orders of magnitude greater casualties.
Right now... they're definitely not doing that.
At the same time, civilian collateral deaths apparently aren't a hard line for them, if they believe they're attacking a Hamas target.
So, somewhere in the middle.
Let us assume that Israel is truthful about every claim they made about Hamas being inside or under pretty much every school, hospital, religious object, and other building that is normally protected from being attacked by the international law of war, and let us assume that their indiscriminate destruction of such objects is legitimate. Does that naturally extend to also include over 45% residential housing units (from the article) absolutely needing to be destroyed or damaged?
From the article: "An Israeli reporter who was taken to see the Gazan town of Beit Hanoun by the Israeli military reported on Sunday that "barely a single inhabitable building remains standing". More than 52,000 people had lived there before the war."
Was the killing of more than 4500 children also absolutely unavoidable, and not just a part of a campaign of vengeful destruction and killing to satisfy bloodlust that is bordering on genocide?
The reports from the ground just don't match the stated goals of the Israeli government and military, nor their stated excuses for so much bloodshed. Let us for the moment pretend that naming killed innocent civilians 'collateral damage' somehow makes their killing okay, and that saying that "Hamas hides among civilians and uses them as human shields" somehow makes it okay to just bomb all those civilians, hoping to also get some militants in the process. We can all make a very good guess that had Hamas fled inside an Israeli city and hid among that city's population, there wouldn't have been indiscriminate bombing of that city with all the killed Israeli citizens being merely proclaimed collateral damage and "oh well, hamas used them as human shield, so we had to bomb them to death". There would have been very precise military action involving a lot of ground fighting, in order to actually minimize civilian deaths, because then it would be civilians that they actually care about. Palestinians, on the other hand... unfortunate human shields and all. Their deaths seem welcome, if anything. And that's genocidal intent.
Is there room for them being viewed as loyal opposition? Or does the current climate make all-people-have-rights viewpoints rub folks the wrong way?
During the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war in the US, there was a marked shift to "It may be bad... but now isn't the time to say anything. Be patriotic." And that wasn't even directly linked to an attack on national soil, like Israel faced!
It's always good to have an aspirational mission statement, lest our worst selves be absolved from responsibility for decisions we let them make.
As you say, millions of Israelis (and the Jewish diaspora) don't support these people.
... but, parts of the Israeli government do.
So how should responsibility/blame be apportioned in a democracy with a vocal opposition minority?
I don't know. But it'd be a useful answer for every other country with voting in the world too (US, UK, Russia, etc).
You're going down a dark road when you start trying to hold individuals personally accountable for what their government does.
The reality is the US plays the heavy while all the other countries get to have their cake and eat it too. They can vote endlessly against Israel knowing the US will be the single no vote. Which suits them just fine. There is no brink of Armageddon because no one that is anyone cares about the Palestinians in Gaza and despite their protects they are perfectly happy with Israel exterminating Hamas. Because if you're a political leader you instinctively understand Hamas is bad news.
Also you're ignoring that while unlike you, Jews in the US don't support genocide against Jews in Israel. They are more critical and willing to apply pressure than say Evangelical Christians, your politicians and your business leaders. So you're mostly blaming the wrong people because it conveniently avoids pointing a finger back at you.
I deplore the actions of Hamas, I deplore the response of the IDF and those in power, it's a horrific shit sandwich with a large number of civilian innocents all around.
I do hope this cools down as quickly as possible for the sake of the majority on both sides.
The problem of moderates (which I am part of in my country) is that they don't like to speak up or enter discussions with the extremist or crazies.
So those people speak unopposed while we stand on the sides just shaking our heads, and little by little (much faster now with internet) they attract followers.
If you like history you'll find these kind of social setup in many places, but most notoriously (Godwin's law, I know) in early 1930s Germany, where Hitler and the Nazi party were seen as extremist, clownish, etc... until suddenly they were in power and it was too late for people to fight them.
Moderates unite?
External countries are generally not going to militarily or diplomatically intervene in a country's internal affairs over "small" matters.
Likewise, if a conflict does reach the point of international intervention, external countries will tend to side towards compromise between disagreeing factions, just to end things.
Settler Israelis know this.
They keep settlement activity "small" enough to avoid international intervention...
... all the while shifting the status quo so that an eventual compromise is further in their favor.
Chinese activities in the South China Sea are somewhat similar, but are non-residential. There's a difference between ceding a military base in a treaty and forcibly evicting civilians from their homes.
I don't think that the settlers are helping the situation at all but I very much doubt that's the case.
Most of them also can't join the Israeli army because of their dangerous views.
Don't let these terrible people taint your views on Israel.
The West Bank government also claims they can’t have elections unless it includes all Palestinians, including the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem residents. This stopped the 2021 elections because Israel wouldn’t enter any agreements ensuring the East Jerusalem residents could vote, and would not be penalized or disrupted from doing so.
I am largely more sympathetic to this waffling because the West Bank is relatively peaceful, and I can see an election that doesn’t include all Palestinians could create the precedence that the current divisions are valid.
But yes, I do think Fatah is also at fault.
For Gaza, I keep hearing "but they elected Hamas, so they're responsible for all the bad deeds". That election was in 2006, close to two decades ago. Many (most?) people who live in Gaza now werent even alive back then.
I understand your point but I don’t think its very fair because even if an election were held tomorrow, these children could not vote.
But in the heat of the moment I would be wary of drawing equivalence between any people and its war time government. Remember how swiftly all doubt vanished from common discourse in America after 9/11? People tend to wholehearted support their militaries during war, and wait until peacetime to determine if they made any mistakes.
Though there is a big difference between the opinions of fringe groups (in Israel), and the official position of the government (Hammas in Palestine).
Sure the settlements suck, hut that's not the state of Israel's doing.
Edit: just to add an interesting fact. The "disaster of 48" (as it's called in Palestine) is when the UN declared the creation of Israel (two state solution) but the Arab neighbors didn't like that so they all attacked Israel at once. As part of the war Palestinians both fled and (no official records, but probably too) got kicked out, at least the ones that supported the Arab nations (many Arabs never left). So it was just self defense by Israel. Now you may say "oh well, they got kicked out, they should get the land back" and to that I'll remind you that the Jews of Europe were slaughtered and kicked out just 3 years prior (the Holocaust). Do you hear anyone calling to give them back their property? War is an ugly thing, but Israel is definitely not the oppressor in the region.
When illegal settlements start being built, and complaints are raised/filed against it, I imagine that it takes quite some time for the settlement building projects to finish. I also imagine that there are laborers and companies involved who execute the building project over a certain period of time. - During that whole time from the start of the settlement being built, to its completion, the state of Israel simply does not notice it happening (despite filed complaints) and is unable to do anything about it? - Israel cannot arrest those people and suspend the license of the company building the illegal settlement that is complicit in the illegal action? - Israel cannot put repeat offenders in prison for a very long time? - Even if a settlement is somehow built without the knowledge of the Israeli government (impossible for a building poject), Israel cannot simply demolish it and heavily fine everyone involved?
You don't sneak a building project behind the government's back, especially when it's built on land that belongs to other people who will surely report it. Either Israeli government is absolutely incapable of doing basic government things, or there is no political will to stop such illegal settlements from being built and the Israeli government does not actually mind them, even though it publicly says that it does.
So yes, the settlements are absolutely the doing of the state of Israel if it is doing nothing to prevent them from being built.
None of this in any way whatsoever justifies the despicable Hamas attacks, but you can see how they might feel agrieved.
This lady shouts „from the river to the river“, and means Nile and Euphrates. I guess she’s a bit more ambitious with her expansionist goals and dare I say more explicit about wanting to build an ethnically cleansed empire.
Eradication of Jews is bad, eradication of Palestinians is bad. Though to be fair, I think this lady isn't talking about eradication, but rather relocation (also terrible), and Hammas does call for eradication.
Uyghurs, Taiwanese, Palestinians, Ukrainians come to mind, surely there are more.
Edit: Huh, that was fast article flagging.
you say it's "peoples"... but this made me realize it is also entire animal species... most mammalian animals alive today are either human or death, most exceptions are famous species......