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Peace Process

Israeli left smearing 'settlers' in runup to next 'disengagement?'


By Stan Goodenough
October 03, 2008

A conservative US Internet news site wondered Wednesday whether the leftist Israeli government was waging a campaign against the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Samaria and Judea in preparation for abandoning those lands to Israel's foes.

"Is the Israeli government leading a campaign to de-legitimize Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank – territory slated to become part of a Palestinian state if current negotiations are pushed through?" asked WorldNetDaily (WND).

According to reporter Aaron Klein, shortly before carrying out the 2005 "disengagement" from Gaza the Sharon government began to issue blanket blame of all the Strip's Jews for the acts of a few fringe elements.

"The Israeli media and politicians here complained about 'violent settlers,' but it turned out many of the acts in question actually were carried out by extremist elements with dubious connections to fringe Jewish organizations from outside Gaza, unconnected to and unsupported by [the Jewish communities of] Gush Katif or the larger settler movement," wrote Klein.

"The Jewish residents of Gaza, mostly peaceful farmers who put up passive resistance to Israel's evacuation, distanced themselves from the extremist hotel protesters. And yet the Israeli and international media did not distinguish Gaza's Jews from the outside provocateurs ... extremism blamed on the tree-lined communities of Gush Katif and used against them to argue for their expulsion."

As possible efforts to demonize Judea and Samaria's Jews - among whom are many of Israel's most God-fearing Jews - WND pointed to events in recent days, among them the death of an Arab shepherd near Shechem and the pipe-bomb attack on the Jerusalem home of a leftist Jewish professor.

There have also been reports of Israeli soldiers being attacked by "settlers."

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claimed there was a "direct link" between the attack on Professor Ze'ev Sternhell and the assassination of former premier Yitzhak Rabin, whose death was blamed on a Jewish nationalist extremist in 1995 following the signing of the Oslo Accords.

"An evil wind of extremism, of hatred, of malice, of violence, of lawlessness is blowing through certain sections of the Israeli public and threatens Israeli democracy," Olmert told the Knesset Sunday, in what WND described as "a clear reference to West Bank settlers."

Spelling it out even more clearly, said the news site, Defense Minister Ehud Barak Sunday urged the Knesset to adopt a tougher stance on punishing settlers for "unruly" behavior.

And in "an eerie flashback to the days of administrative detention just before Israel's Gaza retreat, the Israeli court system recently upheld a ban on several West Bank Jews from returning to their homes, for fear they will incite violence."

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