Dark Truths About the Israeli Occupation

Dark Truths About the Israeli Occupation

By Daniel Levy, Washington Monthly. Posted January 29, 2008.

Can Israelis ever recover from the self-inflicted damage of becoming a

brutal occupier?

Edith Zertal and Akiva Eldar end their exhaustive study of Israeli

settlement policy with a poignant question: Is it possible, they wonder,

that Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip will become a "first step

in Israel's journey of liberating itself from the enslavement to the

territories that it occupied in 1967, and which have occupied [it] since

then and have brought it to the verge of destruction"? Negotiations that

have been set in motion by the Annapolis peace conference in November will

likely provide a partial answer. Zertal, a leading Israeli historian, and

Eldar, a chief political columnist and a former Washington correspondent for

the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, have recently published Lords of the Land: The

War for Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007. It is a

detailed history of Israel's nearly forty-year occupation of Gaza and the

West Bank with a painful contention at its core. The occupation, say Zertal

and Eldar, has wounded Israel's very psyche, damaging both its sense of self

and its moral standing in the world. "The prolonged military occupation and

the Jewish settlements that are perpetuating it have toppled Israeli

governments," write the authors, "and have brought Israel's democracy and

its political culture to the brink of an abyss."

The Hebrew version of this book was a best-seller in Israel, and sparked a

debate there on the devastating realities and consequences of Israeli

settlement policy. It would be useful to replicate that debate here in the

United States -- in the belly, as it were, of the enabler. The book's

unflinchingly provocative title is matched by a narrative that pulls no

punches, and the cast of villains (there are precious few heroes) runs the

gamut from Jewish militia terrorists and their supporters in the Rabbinate

to Labor Party apologists for the settlers and feckless judges who looked

the other way as settlers created illegal outposts within Palestinian

territory.

There are two sides to the settlement coin. The first is the settlers

themselves, who are for the most part religiously inspired, unswervingly

motivated, and highly effective. Religious Zionism was very much in the

backseat of the Zionist enterprise until 1967, but once Israel assumed

control of Judea and Samaria (as the settlers refer to the West Bank), the

national religious camp saw its moment to seize the ideological steering

wheel of state.

Their method was to create facts on the ground -- that is, to quickly build

settlements -- and then get the political system on board by a number of

means. The first step was persuasion ("We are all Jews surrounded by a sea

of enemies"), followed by integration (the settlers' tentacles reached into

all branches of government), and then coercion (the use of intimidation,

threats, and violence). Any dubious action could be "koshered" by a shared

appeal to Jewish history and Zionist destiny. If all else failed, there was

the threat of Arab terror, which the settlers had a key role in encouraging.

For believers, there was a religious justification and meaning -- a theology

of settlement, if you like. The final ingredient was an approach to the

Palestinians that was at best colonial and at worst murderous. The new Lords

of the West Bank arrogantly dismissed the region's indigenous population,

and when the Palestinians showed opposition, settler militias and terrorist

groups were formed (yes, Jewish terrorist groups). In 2001, an Israeli group

named the Committee for the Defense of the Roads claimed responsibility for

the drive-by killing of a six-month-old Palestinian baby and her family.

Similar groups carried out additional attacks, and between 1980 and 1984,

before the First Intifada began, twenty-three Palestinian civilians were

killed in violent attacks by settlers, mostly involving firearms (often army

issue). American readers might be shocked to discover that a religiously

sanctified cult of martyrdom and "redemptive death" among elements of the

Israeli settler community even exists at all, and then horrified at the

extent of its destructiveness.

The other side of the settlement coin is the State of Israel, and the

keyword here is complicity. Nothing would have been possible -- or permanent

-- without the cooperation of Israel's army, legal system, and government

bureaucracy, and the political leadership of all mainstream parties. The

heroes who have fleetingly appeared -- former Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Chiefs of Staff Haim Bar-Lev and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Head of Intelligence

Shlomo Gazit, human rights attorney Talia Sasson, and principled opposition

politicians Yossi Sarid, Dedi Zucker, and Avrum Burg -- have been no match

for the huge cast of villains, facilitators, and mute bystanders. The

banality and bureaucracy of the settlement enterprise carried -- and

continues to carry -- the day.

There's more here: http://tinyurl.com/25zcht and a forum too!

Sam@nospamm.org (Sam Hill) wrote in news:47a1e870.11166703@news.isp.com:

> Dark Truths About the Israeli Occupation

> By Daniel Levy, Washington Monthly. Posted January 29, 2008.

>

> Can Israelis ever recover from the self-inflicted damage of becoming a

> brutal occupier?

Sure can. But your question assumes that the occupation if you

want to call it that is anything vaguely like brutal.

If it were an Arab gummint facing the kind of thing the

Israelis have had to endure from the Paleosimians there

would be very many fewer of these same Paleosimians

stealing air than there are.

IBM

"Ian B MacLure" <ibm@svpal.org> wrote in message

news:Xns9A36C3B302011ibmsvpalorgl@216.196.97.131...

> Sure can. But your question assumes that the occupation if you

> want to call it that is anything vaguely like brutal.

> If it were an Arab gummint facing the kind of thing the

> Israelis have had to endure from the Paleosimians there

> would be very many fewer of these same Paleosimians

> stealing air than there are.

And you probably think the Palestinians - and their allies - will just sit

back and take it.

It's weird how you right-wingers always claim there has to be more

violence... to end violence.

"Sanders Kaufman" <bucky@kaufman.net> wrote in

news:HAwoj.53912$Pv2.16059@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net:

> "Ian B MacLure" <ibm@svpal.org> wrote in message

> news:Xns9A36C3B302011ibmsvpalorgl@216.196.97.131...

>

>> Sure can. But your question assumes that the occupation if you

>> want to call it that is anything vaguely like brutal.

>> If it were an Arab gummint facing the kind of thing the

>> Israelis have had to endure from the Paleosimians there

>> would be very many fewer of these same Paleosimians

>> stealing air than there are.

>

> And you probably think the Palestinians - and their allies - will just sit

> back and take it.

> It's weird how you right-wingers always claim there has to be more

> violence... to end violence.

The Paleosimians will do what what the Paleosimians will do.

They will however have to live with the consequences.

Launch rockets at Israel from built-up areas and those

built-up areas become legitimate military targets.

An Arab gummint facing something like that would simply roll

up the artillery, level the entire community and hunt the

survivors down with flamethrowers.

There used to be a city in Syria called Homs I believe. It

got the full treatment.

IBM