Sacrificing the Settlers Won't Buy Peace
The anti-Semitic Left cannot justify Hamas’s extreme violations of norms as a reaction to "Israeli violence" while simultaneously, and to differentiate a thousand times over, deny settlers the same context when facing Palestinian violence.
Self-hating Jews believe that if they sacrifice the settlers, presenting them and the reality within Judea and Samaria as a separate entity from themselves, the "good Jews", then the world will finally recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security.
This is, of course, a false premise. It fails to understand that 69% of the Arab world does not recognize Israel even within the 1967 borders. The Palestinians do not recognize Israel except perhaps within the 1947 borders, and even that is questionable. As for the Europeans, some hold to the 1967 lines, while others lean toward the 1947 partition plan.
The idea that condemning Jews who live outside these agreed-upon borders (the settlers) will generate recognition for those living within the '67 or '47 lines, and that such recognition would be enough for a life of peace, is fundamentally flawed. It is flawed not just because it contradicts the lessons of history, which prove that Europeans always find a reason to hate or signal out Jews, but because the history of the Zionist movement itself has proven it so. Whether it was the British who opposed us despite our compromises, the Soviets who opposed us despite our concessions, or the Social Democracies of Western Europe that supported the PLO despite our withdrawals in the Golan (1974) and Sinai (1975/1979), the pattern is clear. As long as there is an Arab proxy the Europeans can use to satisfy their appetite for hatred, there will always be someone they seek to empower to keep Israel in a state of constant conflict and perpetual threat.
This is exactly the perspective through which one must view the question of the settlers and their alleged "violence."
If we trace the historical journey back to the beginning of the settlement movement with Gush Emunim in the 1970s, we see that the radicalization of those pioneers was a factor of the Jewish refusal to seize and hold the regions of Samaria and Judea at the same time the PLO was rising on the world stage. The UN, the PLO, and Europe joined forces against Israel in 1974–1975, and the settlement enterprise arose as a direct response.
Today, even though the area is under control, the Oslo Accords effectively gave the Arabs significant control over these regions. We have witnessed how the Arabs attempt to seize territory in Area C in direct violation of those accords. These takeover attempts are funded and maintained by European interests. When Jews resist this, pro-Palestinian organizations, funded through the internet, spread reports of these "frictions" to libel and defame the Zionist project.
The ones who truly deserve to light a torch on Independence Day are the "Hilltop Youth." They are fighting today against a reality created by Europe, just as their forefathers fought against the reality created by the United Nations. It is true that there are instances among them of conduct that deviates from accepted norms, but that deviation does not occur in a vacuum; it is a response to a tool of terror funded and utilized by Europe.
The anti-Semitic Left cannot justify Hamas’s extreme violations of norms as a reaction to "Israeli violence" while simultaneously, and to differentiate a thousand times over (since in their sick imagination, settlers are akin to Hamas), denying settlers the same context when facing Palestinian violence.