Settlers
Oh goody, ANOTHER middle east thread. That's what we all need...
But, wait. I'd like to raise a specific question. That is, what are the rights of the settlers in the occupied territories, and what should Isreal and the Palestinian Authority seek to do with them?
NB this is about the SETTLERS only, and by extension the occupied territory, it is NOT about Isreal within the pre 1967 borders, it is NOT about toddler suicide bombers, etc etc etc.
I raise this in part as a shameless way of posting a link and quotes that I posted in another thread and which rather sank without trace. I found the insight into the SETTLER mindset very illuminating indeed. In many ways they are wholly terrifying, as is anyone who thinks that while "God requires other, normal nations to abide by abstract codes of "justice and righteousness," such laws do not apply to Jews."
But as ever understanding where these people come from throws up some interesting angles. Mainly that they are obviously way outside mainstream Jewish thought. So why do they have Isreal and America by the balls? Aslo, it is plainly not possible to even have a dialogue with people who espouse the views discussed in the link. Therefore it seems force, applied by Isreal very possibly, can be the only answer?
Really, it is a very good link for anyone wanting to understand the mentality of one of the major elements in the problem. http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/polisci/fa.../lustick14.html
Quote:
The implication of chosenness is that the transcendental imperatives to which Jews must respond effectively nullify the moral laws that bind the behavior of normal nations. In "Messianic Realism," and other articles, Aviner considers the relationship between history, politics, and redemption. He argues that divine commandments to the Jewish people "transcend human notions of national rights." He explains that while God requires other, normal nations to abide by abstract codes of "justice and righteousness," such laws do not apply to Jews.
Ours is not an autonomous scale of values, the product of human reason, but rather an heteronomous or, more correctly, theonomous scale rooted in the will of the Divine architect of the universe and its moral order. 7 From the point of view of mankind's humanistic morality we were in the wrong in (taking the land) from the Canaanites. There is only one catch. The command of God ordered us to be the people of the Land of Israel.
Thus does Jewish fundamentalism utterly reject the traditional Zionist image of Jews as a normal people, bound by and rewarded according to the same laws and principles of national self-determination applicable to other nations.
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The Meaning of Arab Opposition to Israel. As befits an abnormal nation, the conflicts Israel encounters with its neighbors are not normal either. In their analysis of the Arab conflict with Israel, if not always in their propaganda, most Israeli leaders have sought to explain Arab hostility in practical terms-as a conflict that stems from misperceptions or specific circumstances. Accordingly, as those perceptions and circumstances change, opportunities for ending the conflict can materialize and should be awaited, identified, and exploited.
Gush Emunim views the conflict with the Arabs in a radically different way-as the latest and most crucial episode in Israel's eternal battle to overcome the forces of evil. This stance is illustrated in the words with which Eleazar Waldman-head of the Kiryat Arba Yeshiva, Member of Knesset for the Tehiya party, and prominent student of Rav Tzvi Yehuda-reassured fundamentalist Jews troubled by the outcome of the Lebanon War. By fighting the Arabs, Waldman reminded his audience, Israel carries out its mission to serve "as the heart of the world, in contact with every organ, and with the world understanding that it must receive the blood of life from the heart."
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Jewish fundamentalists' assumptions about the world, however, make it essentially impossible for them to see Jews and Palestinians in comparable terms. Nor can fundamentalists acknowledge any real tie between the Palestinians, or any human group other than the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel. To do so would contradict the prophecy that the Promised Land would "vomit out" any other people that tries to live there, and that only with the return of the Jews would the land again "shoot forth branches, and yield fruit," 11 as a sign of the beginning of the messianic age. Hence, historically unsupportable notions that only under Jewish cultivation did Palestine become a productive country and that most Palestinian Arabs arrived in the area only within the past century are treated as incontrovertible
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The Jews are authorized by the living God and creator of the universe as a legitimate, eternal people with unalienable rights to the entire Land of Israel. The Palestinians have absolutely no legitimate claim to nationhood or to any part of the country. They have experienced no real suffering, and have drawn together as an entity only out of opposition to the Jews. Theirs is a "suicidal" struggle for the elimination of the state and people of Israel. As such, Israel must recognize the Palestinians as the most destructive and dangerous emanation of Arab hostility, and stand ready to destroy them as they seek to fulfill their collective "deathwish."
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Originally Posted by English assassin
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