Focusing solely on the Israeli settler movement, while ignoring other pertinent realities, is not just intellectually lazy. It is a double standard creatively disguised as antisemitism.
Most of the evil in the world against Jews is perpetrated by Muslims and facilitated by corrupt global institutions, like the UN and the ICC. Hopefully, under the incoming Trump administration, he and his cabinet, including jew/israel-supporting, Elise Stefanik, will challenge the status quo and end our involvement with the UN and, thereby UNRWA (which itself should be labeled as a terrorist organization). We need to push the reboot button on all these organizations and stop facilitating this madness. It is disgusting that, in their final days, the Biden/Harris administration and blue-state governors are doing everything they can to subvert the will of the majority of Americans. It is reminiscent of the final days of WWII, where, even though the Reich knew it was losing, they continued to divert manpower and materiale away from the war and toward the effort to murder as many Jews as possible.
Excellent piece. Joshua, you are a gem on this site, and very important for explaining issues clearly and succinctly. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this about your writing.
As part of the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Accords, Jordan gave up all rights to a "West Bank of Jordan" yet the designation "West Bank" persists. It persists as a thorn in Israel's side and will persist as long as Israel does not insist on calling the disputed territories by both their pre and post-illegal annexation name of Judea and Samaria. Jordan's West Bank was illegal, Israel's Judea and Samaria are not.
The real problem is that the term "settler" is used to describe ANYONE residing over the arbitrary 1948 green line. The Israel haters make no distinct between a couple of zealots living in a trailer among thousands of hostile Arabs and citizens of the city of Ariel which is essentially a suburb of Jerusalem. In fact they call Israelis who move into the old city of Jerusalem "settlers." None of these people are settlers.
Joshua's points are all correct. The only thing missing is a comment on the word "settlement" or "settler." Jews living in Israel are neither. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-754746
There’s more than ample evidence on video over decades to show up close face to face the obnoxious obnoxious sickening behaviour of settlers . To whitewash their role in the damage caused is unacceptable . Where one settler steals land others follow like an infestation.
You will not exonerate yourselves of your culpability in this process of extermination this time . The eyes of the world are squarely focused on Israel and won’t go away anytime soon.
As for the land without a people . Enjoy this bit of history
Perhaps if enough Sufis went to Palestine, they could help shift the consciousness of Palestinians away from Jihadism, and towards peace and human rights.
Nobody believes there was "a land without a people", and very few believed it after it was said, certainly nobody who went there. There was no intent to colonize or exterminate, because most of the newcomers were socialists and anarchists. These were idealistic people who wanted to live out their socialist ideals of peace, equality and DIY (no exploiting anyone). But enough arabs were murderous towards them anyway, because of Jihadism, not because of being oppressed or having land taken from them.
As far as the settlers, yes, from the 1920s to today. the Arab murderousness created more and more resistance and right wing traits among the Israelis, but even now the murderousness of the settlers (and other right wing attributes) is less than the murderousness (and other right wing attributes) of the Palestinians (as a statistical distribution, you can find references to the data in the book Our Political Nature). I agree that the nastiness of the settlers towards Palestinian farmers and villagers should not be condoned and I don't think the author did that. But we can understand it, even without condoning it. Just like we can understand the murderousness of the Palestinians as due primarily to Jihadism (and made a bit more dopamine-compelling due to some sprinkling in of resistance to oppression, primarily by settlers, and a bit by a blockade, defensive checkpoints and counter-terrorist activities).
Maybe the settlers are minor in the overall scheme of Palestinian hatred of Jews, but the settlers do contribute to it, with such acts as vandalism to property, burning down olive trees (and other crops? I can't recall), and making life nasty for them. Worse, they give western liberals more ammunition for their false narrative that Israeli "oppression" causes Palestinian murderousness. I think the cons f settler harrassment of Palestinians outweigh the pros (whatever they might be).
Most of the evil in the world against Jews is perpetrated by Muslims and facilitated by corrupt global institutions, like the UN and the ICC. Hopefully, under the incoming Trump administration, he and his cabinet, including jew/israel-supporting, Elise Stefanik, will challenge the status quo and end our involvement with the UN and, thereby UNRWA (which itself should be labeled as a terrorist organization). We need to push the reboot button on all these organizations and stop facilitating this madness. It is disgusting that, in their final days, the Biden/Harris administration and blue-state governors are doing everything they can to subvert the will of the majority of Americans. It is reminiscent of the final days of WWII, where, even though the Reich knew it was losing, they continued to divert manpower and materiale away from the war and toward the effort to murder as many Jews as possible.
Yes! My thoughts exactly!
Excellent piece. Joshua, you are a gem on this site, and very important for explaining issues clearly and succinctly. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this about your writing.
I do too and tell Joshua each and every time!
As part of the 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Accords, Jordan gave up all rights to a "West Bank of Jordan" yet the designation "West Bank" persists. It persists as a thorn in Israel's side and will persist as long as Israel does not insist on calling the disputed territories by both their pre and post-illegal annexation name of Judea and Samaria. Jordan's West Bank was illegal, Israel's Judea and Samaria are not.
Here in Seattle, if the reality deniers had their way they would declare all of us settlers who are illegally on (name your native people) land.
The settler epithet leveled against Israelis is garbage. It always has been.
The real problem is that the term "settler" is used to describe ANYONE residing over the arbitrary 1948 green line. The Israel haters make no distinct between a couple of zealots living in a trailer among thousands of hostile Arabs and citizens of the city of Ariel which is essentially a suburb of Jerusalem. In fact they call Israelis who move into the old city of Jerusalem "settlers." None of these people are settlers.
Excellent piece! Judea and Samaria were never owned by any people prior to 1967
Joshua's points are all correct. The only thing missing is a comment on the word "settlement" or "settler." Jews living in Israel are neither. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-754746
There’s more than ample evidence on video over decades to show up close face to face the obnoxious obnoxious sickening behaviour of settlers . To whitewash their role in the damage caused is unacceptable . Where one settler steals land others follow like an infestation.
You will not exonerate yourselves of your culpability in this process of extermination this time . The eyes of the world are squarely focused on Israel and won’t go away anytime soon.
As for the land without a people . Enjoy this bit of history
https://substack.com/@declanmulrooney/note/c-77478255?r=z8okd&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Perhaps if enough Sufis went to Palestine, they could help shift the consciousness of Palestinians away from Jihadism, and towards peace and human rights.
Nobody believes there was "a land without a people", and very few believed it after it was said, certainly nobody who went there. There was no intent to colonize or exterminate, because most of the newcomers were socialists and anarchists. These were idealistic people who wanted to live out their socialist ideals of peace, equality and DIY (no exploiting anyone). But enough arabs were murderous towards them anyway, because of Jihadism, not because of being oppressed or having land taken from them.
As far as the settlers, yes, from the 1920s to today. the Arab murderousness created more and more resistance and right wing traits among the Israelis, but even now the murderousness of the settlers (and other right wing attributes) is less than the murderousness (and other right wing attributes) of the Palestinians (as a statistical distribution, you can find references to the data in the book Our Political Nature). I agree that the nastiness of the settlers towards Palestinian farmers and villagers should not be condoned and I don't think the author did that. But we can understand it, even without condoning it. Just like we can understand the murderousness of the Palestinians as due primarily to Jihadism (and made a bit more dopamine-compelling due to some sprinkling in of resistance to oppression, primarily by settlers, and a bit by a blockade, defensive checkpoints and counter-terrorist activities).
Maybe the settlers are minor in the overall scheme of Palestinian hatred of Jews, but the settlers do contribute to it, with such acts as vandalism to property, burning down olive trees (and other crops? I can't recall), and making life nasty for them. Worse, they give western liberals more ammunition for their false narrative that Israeli "oppression" causes Palestinian murderousness. I think the cons f settler harrassment of Palestinians outweigh the pros (whatever they might be).