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Peace Process

Israel is its own worst enemy


By Ryan Jones
December 12, 2005

Deep-seated hatred, rather than security concerns, is the true underlying reason behind the left-leaning Sharon government's uprooting of Gaza's Jews and systematic discrimination against them and their supporters, a new poll suggests.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel on Monday released a report accusing the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of violating the settlers' rights to freedom of speech, political opinion and protest, and of subjecting them and their supporters to ?disproportionate actions.?

In the run up to the removal of all Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria, those who opposed ?disengagement? from the Land of Israel were regularly demonized in the local press as treasonous and undemocratic, and many, including children, were jailed for long periods for blocking highways as a means of non-violent protest.

By comparison, members of Israel's leftist Histadrut labor union faced no such disciplinary actions when they blocked major roads and highways throughout the country more than a year earlier to protest economic reforms.

In the aftermath of disengagement, thousands of Jews were left homeless, and according to a report in The Jerusalem Post Sunday, a full 78 percent of the 8,000 refugees are still unemployed.

The above disturbing facts are of little surprise considering the results of a new public opinion poll showing the half of Israeli society that describes itself as left-wing views Jewish settlers of Israel's biblical heartland with greater hostility than they do the Palestinian Arab population dedicated to and supportive of Israel's ultimate demise.

Conducted by The College of Management and first reported by Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily, the survey examined the attitudes of a representative sampling of 500 Israeli Jews towards various sectors of society.

Most Israelis, the poll showed, feel greatest animosity towards the ?Palestinians,? who for the past five years have conducted a destructive terrorist war against the Jewish state.

But among Israelis that describe themselves as left-wing, 67 percent hate Jewish settlers more than any other group.

Ignoring the terrorist realities Israel faced during its first 19 years as a modern sovereign nation, the local and international media have popularized the notion that the hundreds of thousands of Jews living on their biblical patrimony in Judea and Samaria are the root cause for Islamic terrorism not only in Israel, but against the entire Western world.

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