I am a Settler

[Gamblor]

I Am A Settler

I am a settler. According to most of the world, I and people like me are to blame for violence in the Mideast, global terrorism, even tribal warfare in The Sudan. I'm sure that, given time, the hurricanes hitting seacoasts around the world could also be attributed to the settlers.

If I were to be viciously murdered and hacked to death along with children and old people tomorrow, it wouldn't be the person wielding the knife who would be at fault, it would be me and us to blame!

I am an enemy of the world. I am a more nefarious and violent entity than Al Qaeda, the murderers of the school children in Beslan, the Madrid bombers, The Junjaweed in Sudan, Al Zaqaawi in Iraq,etc. When terrorists perpetrate their acts, the media fall over themselves to try and understand why. Was it their upbringing? Were they social outcasts, picked on at school?

Whatever the reason, they will find out and paint a very human picture to these humans who commit inhuman acts. I am a settler, apparently I got up one day and felt like oppressing the poor Palestinians and stealing their land and that is the whole of my story.

In media reports around the world I do not have a gender, I do not have a profession, I do not have likes or dislikes, I have no context. I am always referred to as a 'settler', sometimes I am afforded the prefix 'extremist' or 'right-wing'.

I can tell you that I am new at this 'settling' business. A few months ago I wasn't a settler and if I was killed it would be partially condemned by oh, let's see.....at least four or five governments. Today I wouldn't receive even that. I have moved only a few miles geographically yet a whole world in terms of legitimacy. I dared to move across the hallowed 'Green Line'.

I am sure the whole world knows what the Green Line is and how it got its name. I am sure they know that it was created by two generals on opposing sides in war sitting in a tent in the middle of nowhere attempting to muddle out a ceasefire. I am sure too that the world knows that the only marker they had to delineate the lines of cease-fire was a thick green magic marker pen which when making the line on the map was sometimes miles thick.

That is it, a cease-fire line. Not the borders of a state, not the ending of a peace plan, but a line showing where two armies had finished their fighting and decided on a truce. When people talk of 1967 borders, they are being factually incorrect. One can only border a sovereign state.

Which brings me to my next important fact which I am positive the world knows. There has never been a sovereign Palestine, ever in the history of man. Never a Palestinian King, President, ruler. Never a distinct Palestinian language or culture or currency.

So where is it I have moved to, I hear you ask. I can tell you that the last Internationally recognized agreement pertaining to this land was called 'The Balfour Declaration' which was adopted by The League of Nations in the early part of the twentieth century which called for a Jewish Home including where I now live....and nothing since. So at best surely where I live could be called 'disputed'. I recognize that there is a dispute, there are two people wanting to claim this land where I live. I do not occupy it any more than an arab who lives down the road from me.

Speaking of Arabs, the world knows where I stand on them. Surely, I want them gone from here or dead perhaps and I pray continually for their destruction. Well I have some news for the world: I don't hate the Arabs or anyone particularly. I hate traffic, cold mornings and finding the colour of my clothes have run in the washing machine, but I don't hate people. I have never hurt anyone in my life, nor do I intend to. I am not a pacifist, nor am I violent. I'm just like most people on this planet....a regular person. A regular person doesn't hate any particular people.

I have been told by many "more veteran" settlers that they remember before the Intifada when they used to go to the shops and souks of the local Arab towns and cities. They used to invite Arabs to their homes and celebrations and were invited back. Yes, these were the evil settlers pouring tea to their Arab guests of their home and enquiring about the health of their relatives. These were the abhorrent Arab-hating settlers who would moan about the weather with the Arab shopkeepers as they did their weekly grocery shopping. What may surprise many is that most settlers long for these times again and dream of living side by side with Arabs or anyone in peace and harmony. Damn they are truly evil!

As a settler I am not allowed in many countries. I am sure you all knew the declaration of The Non-Aligned countries in the UN (a very large percentage of the world) that I am barred from their countries. While the world fights for civil rights for murderers and terrorists, mine are just shunted aside. But hey, it doesn't matter. As a Jew I am not allowed in many countries in the world and am forbidden from owning land in many, many more.

So yes I am a settler! I make no apology for it. I never hurt anyone, I never stole anyone's land. In fact the land I am living on wasn't lived on before I got here. No Palestinians were displaced to make room for me. I wanted to write this piece not to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I haven't even given my reasons for living here. I just wanted to give myself and those around me context.

I wanted to let you know that the BBC, CNN, etc don't know me or want to get to know me, they would rather shed a tear and try to 'understand' terrorism. I don't even seek anyone to understand me. I just want people to understand that there are two sides and to learn about both. To make a decision about something while only knowing one side is intellectually unsatisfying. Not to at least listen to both sides is dishonest.

[andyfox]

On the land called Palestine there existed as a huge majority for hundreds of years a largely pastoral, a nevertheless socially, culturally, politically, economically identifiable people whose language and religion were (for a huge majority) Arabic and Islam, respectively. This people--or if one wishes to deny them any modern coneption of themselves as a people, this group of people--identified itself with the land it tilled and lived on, the more so after an almost wholly European decision was made to resettle, reconstitute, recapture the land for Jews who were to be brought there from elsewhere.

The Balfour Declaration was made (a) by a European power, (b) about a non-European territory, (c) in a flat disregard of both the presence and the wishes of the native majority resident in that territory, and (d) it took the form of a promise about this same teritory to another foreign group, so that this foreign group might make this territory a national home for the Jewish people.

"the land I am living on wasn't lived on before I got here. No Palestinians were displaced to make room for me."

Apparently, Moshe Dayan, then, was mistaken when he said in April, 1969: "We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal [Dayan's own village] arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat in the place of Jibta, Saarid in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua in the plce of Tell Shaman. There is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab popluation. [Emphasis added]

I recommend former Jerusalem deputy mayor Meron Benvenisti's book Sacred Landscape which explains how the Arabic names of more than 9,000 natural features, villages, and ruins were replaced by new Hebrew nomenclature as a political act. (Benvenisti's father was a geographer who took part in the renaming process, so he is famliar with what happened as a scholar, as an Israeli official, and from personal experience). If you truly wish to see both sides of the story.

[lastchance]

Damn nice posts, the both of you...

[nicky g]

If the Green Line is nothing but an old ceasefire line with no real meaning, why does the Israeli government award citizenship to non-Jews living to the West of it in Israel but not those on the East of it in the West Bank? Seems to me you and they want it to be meaningless for Israeli Jews, but very much a border for Palestinian Arabs. Same old same old: one law for the settlers, another for the people who've lived there for centuries.

You should really make it clearer when you copy something from somewhere else. This is the original, as I understand it.

[zaxx19]

There has never been a sovereign Palestine, ever in the history of man. Never a Palestinian King, President, ruler. Never a distinct Palestinian language or culture or currency.

Hey dont go around actually making sense...people here do not like it.

Arabs are indigenous to Arabia,,,I never got how that was hard to understand???

THEY colonized the middle east. Apparently that is ok. Because it is convenient now to forget that for the left wing fasionables in Paris who wear keffiyahs in cafes and complain about Israel in bistros. The word Palestinian is a bastardization of Philistine. The Philistines were not even semitic but Hellenic seafarers. Modern day Palestinians are completely utterly and totally identical to Jordanians, sunni syrians, and sunni Lebanese. I dare anyone to tell me their idiosyncrasies that separate them from Jordanians?? In fact most Jordanians are now a mixture of "Palestinian" arabs and Jordanian ones...a purely geographic distinctions. The fact that so many people on the left have been completely bamboozled into believing there ever was a distinct Palastinian civilization(pause for laughter) is a testament to the success of the arab petrodollar propaganda machine.

NOW THIS DOES NOT MEAN ARABS IN ISRAEL SHOULD HAVE BEEN DISPLACED OR SHOULD BE TODAY!!!

But it is important that we dont allow history to be molded to suit one or another sides politics.

[Gamblor]

If the Green Line is nothing but an old ceasefire line with no real meaning, why does the Israeli government award citizenship to non-Jews living to the West of it in Israel but not those on the East of it in the West Bank?

Non-Jewish Thais work on settlements and some have Israeli citizenship.

The definiting characteristic of Israeli citizenship is not ethnicity. Although being Jewish grants automatic citizenship, non-Jews apply on general criteria no more stringent than Canada or the United States. Compare this with European countries which often have padlocks on the front doors.

(The Law of Return is more a curse for Israel than a blessing. You know how the Statue of Liberty says "Give us your tired, your poor, your weak" etc. etc. Well they don't go to America; they come to Israel.)

Oh and not a single PLO Arab has been living there for centuries, so get over yourself.

So. Arabs west of the Green line, at the time of independence, did not leave. They didn't fight, and they agreed to be members of the new state. The Arabs that sided with the Arab invaders for various reasons we have already discussed (which do not include ethnic cleansing) were not there anymore. They may say they want citizenship, but in reality they'd much rather just have all the Jews dead. Citizenship is an excuse. See Plan of Stages.

You should really make it clearer when you copy something from somewhere else.

I thought it was a pretty obvious cut and paste job, it was sent to me in an email - I didn't have any source. Of course lots of the settlers are lunatics. But they're not murderous lunatics (until there's another Arab who breaks past security and kills a mother reading her children a bedtime story).

[nicky g]

The point is the Israeli government and the settlers clearly recognise the Green Line as a political border when it suits their interests to do so; so this bloke arguing that it's just an arbitrary ceasefire line is disingenuous. As usual, they want it both ways.

[Gamblor]

The point is the Israeli government and the settlers clearly recognise the Green Line as a political border when it suits their interests to do so;

In fact, they never ever recognize the Green Line as a political border. Jews who "settle" in Negev development are subsidized in the same as Jews who "settle" in the Territories. The only difference is the need for increased security in the Territories thanks to roving bands of murderers.

Most Palestinians didn't even live in the Territories until after Israel took control of them from Jordan/Egypt.

[Victor]

I agree. Simply living indigenously does not make the land an entitlement. Get out the smallpox blankets.

[nicky g]

You either aren't reading what I'm writing or are purposefully ignoring it. Subsidies have nothing to do with it. The Israeli government and the settlers themselves clearly treat the land on the East of the green line as different from that in Israel in terms of its population. When it suits their needs and beliefs, they treat the green line as a political border. The reasons for that or other ways in which they act as if they are still in Israel when it suits them are irrelevant to that basic fact.