Being ashamed is not enough (Ha'aretz editorial)

[Violet_Crumble]

When the prime minister says he was "ashamed," referring to the behavior of Hebron settler Yifat Alkobi, whose profanity unleashed at the Abu Ayshe family sent them reeling into their home over the Hebron market, we should tell him that a prime minister was not elected to be ashamed, but to take action. When the government under his leadership decides to set up a ministerial committee to deliberate the issue of enforcing the law against Hebron settlers because "it is impossible to accept such brutal behavior," the shame belongs to all of us.

After all, there is no need for a committee to learn the facts and take action. To date no prime minister has proved brave enough to accept the challenge and remove this festering wound of settlement activity, this outcast Jewish settlement, which has managed to drive 30,000 Palestinians from their homes and their shops, and transform the Palestinian center of Hebron into a ghost town. The profanities of Alkobi are peripheral to this entanglement.

The Jewish settlement in Hebron was the first organized illegal outpost, which was set up following the Six-Day War by Rabbi Moshe Levinger on seder eve, 1968 at the city's Park Hotel. Several dozen guests who had come to celebrate the seder in the city refused to return to their homes. They included the historic founders of the settlement movement, who identified this means of illegal activity under cover of the law: takeover by devious methods, lobbying and force, exploiting Israel Defense Forces soldiers and politicians to gain protection, while rolling their eyes, as if all this constituted moral Zionism, to which any opposition implied treason to one's people and motherland. Alkobi is only a natural outgrowth of the Levinger family.

If a peace agreement is ever signed with the Palestinians, the Hebron settlers will have to end their illegal holiday at the Park Hotel, which has been going on 38 years too long, because no border will be able to include this outrageous enclave inside a large Arab city. Following the 1994 massacre by Baruch Goldstein of Muslims praying in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Yitzhak Rabin should have seized the opportunity to remove the Jewish settlement, but he was deterred. And since then, no leader has even dared think about doing so.

The IDF has law enforcement authority over the Hebron residents, Jewish and Arab alike, and so does the Israel Police, but no one is willing to confront them, knowing the government is not really interested in such enforcement. The soldiers lack the backing and the incentive to enforce the law in a place that has been lawless for years. There is no point in again going over the matter of law enforcement when the presence of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, in a time of conflict - as opposed to the conditions of peace - is blatantly illogical.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/813797.html

[PurpleChez]

1. Thank you for posting this

One of the more perplexing aspects of the notion that anybody who disagrees with the actions of Israel is an anti-Semite is the fact, borne out by this editorial, that many Israelis disagree with (the gov't of) Israel on any given topic. The American branch of the "Israel Is Never Wrong" movement seems to have little or no knowledge of the peace movement and similar groups within Israel.

[Poll_Blind]

2. It's not that they have no knowledge of them, it is irrelevant to their...

...purpose. Their purpose is not to seek some greater truth or understanding. Their purpose is to get money and the ability to purchase top-shelf weapons and defense systems from the U.S. To do this, they must exert a certain level of control to suppress counter-opinion on the topic. After all, the numerous organizations which exert pressure on various aspects and individuals within the U.S. government primarily use a very aggressive constituent base to do so.

  Again, very little hocus-pocus here (except for the Israeli government's willingness to feed very specific data to these groups for maximum effect). Mostly just constituents who spend a great deal of time lobbying their representatives. They are very effective at it. There is nothing wrong with this. It is, in fact, The American Way.

  Because of the actions of the Israeli government this process becomes more difficult as opposition rises. So opposition must be controlled via the constituents as well (although organizations and (rarely) the Israeli government assists).

  Which is why one sees the false cries of anti-Semitism when vetted statesmen like Jimmy Carter speak out. The same happens to members of the Jewish community who speak out, but because of the conflation of Judaism and Israeli nationalism the punishment is far worse than being called an anti-Semite. Jews who speak out against Israel's actions are branded (sometimes from within Israel, sometimes from the Diaspora, often both) as self-loathing Jews. At the extreme end of this response are rabbinical proclamations of din moser which are strongly suspected in the now-muddied Yigal Amir assassination of Rabin, but the cultural "freezing out" of Israel's Jewish critics more than suffices in the Disapora.

  Conservative Religious Zionists must control the backlash to Israeli governmental policy and the most effective (and damaging to both the victims and assailants) are charges of anti-Semitism under the broad-brush "rules" of The New Anti-Semitism. That it has come to this is not surprising given the abhorrent activities of the Israeli government, especially in regards to the settlements. However, each false charge of anti-Semitism dilutes the natural repellent nature of the term, specifically in Americans who are heavily acculturated to find it repulsive. Growing confusion over what anti-Semitism actually is grows with greater use of this technique until anti-Semitism is without clear definition or, stated another way, defined so broadly as to be much less offensive by definition.

  This is why The New Anti-Semitism is most dangerous concepts twoard Judaism, but especially Diasporic Judaism. However, the prepetrators are more than willing to borrow against the treatment of Diasporic Jews to fund their expensive ass-covering of the actions of the Israeli government. That Religious Zionists in Israel would not give a fig about how their behavior affects Diasporic Jews is not new.

  To clarify the point in the last paragraph, I pose the following question: Which is worse for Diaspoic Jews, a raise in anti-Semitism or a greater acceptance in general of what is defined (according to the New Anti-Semitism) as anti-Semitism? I believe the latter, because a greater acceptance of mis-defined anti-Semitism allows actual, conventional, anti-Semitism to fly "under the radar", in a manner of speaking.

PB

[Shaktimaan]

3. Does anyone know

whether the IDF is currently occupying the Arab section of Hebron?

Either way this guy is playing a little loose with the facts. A re-read of Oslo might be a good idea.

[Scurrilous]

4. Prosecution: Soldiers must detain settlers harassing Palestinians

Following incident caught on video in which soldiers failed to interfere while female settler harassed Palestinian neighbor in Hebron, State Prosecutor’s office rules: Soldiers must block violence towards people, property and alert police

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3360013,00.html

<snip>

"When a soldier witnesses settler violence towards Palestinians or their property, he must detain the suspects and alert the police or Border Guard, Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan declared Thursday.

In a letter to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Nitzan addressed the recent incident in the West Bank exposed by Ynet in which Hebron settlers harassed their Palestinian neighbors and soldiers failed to interfere.

After two videos recording incidents of settler harassment were published on Ynet, the question arose as to what degree of involvement should be required of soldiers who witness such disturbances.

The letter told the civil rights groups that all the relevant officials had met at the Deputy State Prosecutor’s office to discuss the problem.

Nitzan wrote that the officials concluded that soldiers must detain suspects until police arrived, rather than rely on identifying the suspects later."

[Tom Joad]

5. We can see at this website if this policy is actually going to be implemented.

http://www.telrumeidaproject.org/index.html

Brave souls who are on the ground in Tel Rumeida, a Palestinian neighborhood in Hebron.

[breakaleg]

6. What kind of adults will these children grow into? They are being raised as bigots.

As a parent I would be so ashamed of those children.

All this fighting, this dispute over land Israel refuses to give up and for the likes of those settlers. They aren't worth the effort.