Settlers try to stop new Palestinian city

[Scurrilous]

Some 60 members of right-wing youth movement arrive in West Bank town of Birzeit at dawn in bid to establish Jewish community in area

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3870243,00.html

<snip>

"Some 60 right-wing activists from the "Youth for the Land of Israel" movement arrived early Wednesday at deserted buildings near the West Bank town of Birzeit in the Ramallah area.

The teens announced their intention to establish a Jewish community named "Beer Zayit" in the area in response to a Palestinian plan to build a new city called Rawabi, which the settlers said would weaken the Jewish holding in the Binyamin region.

Meir Bertler, one of the operation's organizers, told Ynet that the activists had arrived with vehicles from communities across the Binyamin region, but that the Israel Defense Forces had stopped them from driving to the area. Therefore, he said, they entered the area by foot, carrying a flag of Israel. They held the morning prayer in the area and hung flags on some of the buildings."


Related thread:

Hope raised by plans for new West Bank city

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=294909

[oberliner]

1. Wow! A whole 60 activists!

Almost as big as a tea party protest!

[MUAD_DIB]

2. And the settlers should all be escorted back into Israel proper

and told to kindly fuck off.

Now when do the asshole Israel firsters come out of the woodwork to defend the right to continually fuck with the Palestinians?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

5. Oberliner has already come out to pretend that small groups of settlers don't have a lot of pull.

[oberliner]

6. Tea partiers have a lot of pull even though their numbers are quite small

I don't know where you got the idea that I was "pretending" that small groups of settlers "don't have a lot of pull" - again, you appear to be reading into things that aren't there.

[Violet_Crumble]

9. Numbers have NOTHING to do with this...

As I've already said to you, and you appear to be intent on ignoring, I doubt it matters if there were 5 or 500. They're lunatics who need to be stopped...
What do you think Israel should do with extremist settlers such as those?

btw, yr reaction to that OP was rather strange. While most DUers are open in their condemnation of extremist settlers and their actions, you pop up with a strange tangental thing and don't condemn their actions.

[oberliner]

10. Less is better

The Israeli press should not fall into the same trap with these folks that the US press has with regard to the tea party movement.

Twice as many people were at the Bilin fence protest that took place a few days later (and a few days earlier, and every week).

[Violet_Crumble]

13. When it comes to the extremist settlers, it doesn't matter if it's 5 or 50...

They shouldn't be there in the first place and five can do as much damage as a larger mob...

[oberliner]

14. Are all settlers extremist settlers?

In your opinion, is there such a thing as a non-extremist settler?

[Violet_Crumble]

16. Are you denying those settlers in the OP are extremists?

Because they're what I'm talking about. Sorry if there's any confusion on yr part there...

[oberliner]

19. Of course not

These actions clearly indicate that these are extremist settlers.

If you would take the time to answer my question, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Violet_Crumble]

20. It just seems a rather strange question for you to ask, that's all...

I've gone into a fair bit of detail in the past back when there was one or two now tombstoned DUers who insisted that referring to extremist settlers was both antisemitic and portraying all settlers as being extremists. While there are the ones who are heavily invested in a fused ultra-nationalistic/religious vision of a greater Israel and are there to try to make sure that happens, sometimes using extreme violence towards Palestinians along the way, there's also settlers who aren't extremists and are in large settlements due to the subsidies and other sweeteners offered by successive Israeli governments. I think they're best referred to as economic settlers, and they're the ones who will more than likely be easy to move back into Israel, not like the others where it will possibly get even uglier than it did during the Disengagement. I can go back and dig up some of my older posts on this, so if yr interested, let me know...

[oberliner]

21. I had not recalled your earlier statements on this subject

Thanks for sharing your views.

I would agree with your characterizations.

[Violet_Crumble]

23. I'm not sure if you were even at DU when I'm remembering going into detail...

Which is why you wouldn't recall it. It's also worth noting (though I'm going on something I read a few years ago) that while dangerous and violent, the extremists are numerically a much smaller group than the economic settlers...

[Scurrilous]

38. These outings can turn tragic:

The ‘Beita’ incident of 1988 shines lasting light on a cruel Occupation and its halfhearted coverage (April 6, 2010)

<snip>

"Today marks the 22nd anniversary of just one of the innumerable tragic events in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is worth revisiting because it typifies the racism, cruelty, injustice, even insanity of the Occupation. A succession of New York Times articles captures the chronology of events and just as importantly, how those events were revealed and discussed by the newspaper of record.

The incident occurred on April 6, 1988 in and around the West Bank village of Beita. The intifada had begun several months earlier, and the death toll stood at122 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, which had lost a single soldier. In addition to the Palestinian fatalities, there had been untold numbers of arrests, routine torture of detainees, and broken bones deliberately inflicted by IDF troops pursuant to the openly-stated policy of the Defense Minister, the future Nobel peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin.

What landed this incident on front page of the Times was the fact that Israel had lost its first civilian, a teenage girl named Tirza Porat. In an article entitled “Israeli Girl Killed by Rocks in Melee,” John Kifner reported that Tirza had been “stoned to death by Palestinian villagers” while hiking with friends on a “holiday outing.” The body of the article revealed that two Palestinians also had been killed, but the headline left no doubt as to whose life was of more significance.

The Israeli hikers reported that their group of 18, two of whom were armed guards, had been confronted outside Beita by Palestinian youths throwing stones, and that “pandemonium broke out . . when a woman rushed out and slammed a big rock down on the head of one of the Israeli guards.” Military officials stated that Tirza’s “skull was crushed by repeated blows, apparently from stones.” According to Gen. Amram Mitzna, commander of the West Bank: ”Many stones were thrown at the children, who were also beaten. As a result, the girl was killed and two or three of the teen-age hikers were seriously injured.”

Israel, which had administered so much suffering to quell an uprising against a 21-year-old occupation, now found itself “victimized” by a tiny fraction of that suffering, and the reaction was immediate and extreme. Religious Affairs Minister Zevulun Hammer chimed in with the presumably religious viewpoint, calling on the army to ”cut off the arms of these wild men and smash the skull of the viper of death.”

The following day, Tirza’s funeral became a public spectacle. Her fellow settlers called for “revenge” and expulsion of the Arabs. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir brought lighter fluid, telling the mourners, “The heart of the entire nation is boiling” and “God will avenge her blood.” A “rabbi” added that the village of Beita ‘’should be wiped off the face of the earth.” Minister of Justice Avraham Sharir recommended that dozens of houses be demolished and hundreds expelled upon mere suspicion of responsibility.

Israel began to dispense such justice immediately. A third Palestinian youth from Beita was killed, this time by the IDF, which explained that the boy was trying to flee, presumably from the armed soldiers who were pursuing and firing at him. The army also demolished several houses in the village.

However, the same day as the funeral, the hikers’ story began to unravel, when a bullet from an Israeli guard’s rifle was recovered from Tirza’s body. More information was available from the young Israeli hikers, who said that Israeli guards had fired some shots outside the village, and repeated that the trouble began when a woman hit one Israeli guard, a Meir Kahane follower named Roman Aldubi, with a rock. Aldubi had such a history of violence against Arabs, including shooting at them, that he had become the first Jewish citizen subject to the “emergency powers that are commonly used to control Palestinians,” according to the Times. One of the Israeli hikers confided to ABC News that the outing had a political message to the indigenous population: ”We have to show them that we are the owners of the country.”

more

[Violet_Crumble]

3. I doubt it matters if there were 5 or 500. They're lunatics who need to be stopped...

What do you think Israel should do with extremist settlers such as those?

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Kick for Oberliner...

I just want to make sure that you've done some reconsidering of yr really unfortunate comment in this thread and am hoping that you'll answer the question I asked you...

[Violet_Crumble]

8. *sigh* It's not looking hopeful... nt

[oberliner]

11. If they break the law, arrest them. If they hold a "protest" ignore them.

Surely we can agree on that.

[Violet_Crumble]

12. Do you think they should be removed from the West Bank totally? n/t

[oberliner]

15. The vast majority of settlers will have to leave or become Palestinian citizens

The others are the ones who are living on land that will be exchanged between Israel and the newly created Palestinian state in a one-to-one land swap.

The Geneva Initiative represents my vision of what a peace agreement ought to look like.

Do you think Israel ought to unilaterally remove the settlements in the West Bank as they did in Gaza without any formal peace agreement?

[Violet_Crumble]

17. That's not what you were asked. You were asked about the settlers in the OP....

So, let's try it again. Do you think the settlers in the OP should be removed from the West Bank?

[oberliner]

18. I find the tone of this post to be incredibly nasty - it is sarcastic and patronizing

Specifically the use of "so, let's try it again" - please apologize and present your question in a more straightforward manner without any nastiness.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. Nothing sarcastic or nasty about asking you to answer the question...

I do find it a bit of a shame that yr avoiding answering what I thought was a straightforward question I asked, especially as I've just given you an answer to the question you asked me about settlers in general. I'm so seriously not interested in playing silly games, and while I was genuinelly interested in finding out what you thought, it's really not worth jumping through hoops to do so...

[oberliner]

24. Perhaps from your perspective, but not from mine

And it's the intended audience and how they take something that's important.

Anyhow, I am pretty sure I did answer the question the first time with my comment about the Geneva Initiative, but perhaps I was not fully understanding the specificity of your question.

With respect to the settlers indicated in the OP, I do not believe that these individual settlers ought to be kicked out of the West Bank specifically due to the actions described in the OP and not as part of a broader peace agreement. Although if the Israeli government decided to do so, I would not be too upset about it.

If they break the law, they ought to be punished accordingly. Presumably they are no longer engaged in their protest action so it seems like the matter is closed for the time being.

[Violet_Crumble]

25. Okay, got to have a bit of a word about timing here...

Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but this thread hasn't got exchanges that have turned to complete shit like the other one yr making a passive reference to, so maybe this isn't the time nor the thread for it?

Anyway, we appear to be in disagreement over what should be done to the extremist settlers in the OP. If they break the law they should be moved back to Israel and not allowed to enter the West Bank at all. That way when (or if) the time comes when extremist settlers are going to have to be physically removed, there's less of them to worry about.

[oberliner]

26. I believe that most of the members of this group are teenagers

Many of them are, I believe, high school students who live with their parents.

Wouldn't that complicate things a bit in terms of forcing them to re-locate?

[Violet_Crumble]

27. How would it complicate things? n/t

[oberliner]

28. Forcibly separating minor children from their parents in this instance seems unethical

The minors would also probably not have any source of income in order to pay for housing on their own if they were no longer permitted to live with their parents.

Are you proposing that the state provide some kind of housing for these youths? And supervision as well?

[Violet_Crumble]

29. No-one would be forcibly separating anyone...

Their parents can always move back to Israel with them. It'd be the parents who'd be forcibly separating themselves from their children if they chose not to...

[oberliner]

31. What if the parents won't move? Would the state take care of the children?

What kind of housing and supervision would be provided?

This is why I think it would be complicated with minors.

If you are talking about the adult ring-leaders of the organization, then it would be less complicated.

[Violet_Crumble]

33. Then the parents should get moved back to Israel too n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

30. Can you point out where in the article it said many were minors who lived with their parents?

I don't recall reading that at all...

[oberliner]

32. "Some 60 right-wing activists from the "Youth for the Land of Israel" movement"

If you google that group, you will find that their membership is comprised primarily of teenagers.

[Violet_Crumble]

34. Where in the OP does it say that many of the protesters were minors living with their parents?

I'd like you to point out where in the article it said that about those particular protesters...

[oberliner]

35. The article in the OP refers to these particular protesters as "teens"

It also calls the group a "youth movement" - further research on the group reveals even more information not found in the OP.

[Violet_Crumble]

36. Being a teen doesn't make someone a minor nor mean they live at home with their parents...

Nor does a movement with the word 'youth' in it mean that its members are teens who live with their parents. So the OP didn't say anything about those particular protesters being minors who live with their parents, and as the OP and nto yr 'further research' is about that particular protest, I think it's incorrect to try arguing that most of them were teens who live with their parents. If on yr research you track down anyone who asked each of those protesters how old they are and whether they live at home, then I think it'd be worth mentioning...

[oberliner]

37. No, indeed it does not

We can only speculate on the exact ages of these teens as that information is not provided in this article.

I believe that many of them were probably minors based on my understanding of this group. I certainly could be wrong, but if many (or even some) of them are, I wonder if that would complicate things a bit in the manner I described.

If they are all adults, then it's a lot less complicated.

[BlueInMass]

4. Get them out...

Israel needs to deal with these guys. The Palestinians have their rights.