De Israelische Terreur 307

'Dark Truths About the Israeli Occupation
By Daniel Levy,

Washington Monthly
Posted on January 29, 2008

Edith Zertal and Akiva Eldar end their exhaustive study of Israeli
settlement policy with a poignant question: Is it possible, they
wonder, that Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip will become
a "first step in Israel's journey of liberating itself from the
enslavement to the territories that it occupied in 1967, and which
have occupied [it] since then and have brought it to the verge of
destruction"? Negotiations that have been set in motion by the
Annapolis peace conference in November will likely provide a partial
answer. Zertal, a leading Israeli historian, and Eldar, a chief
political columnist and a former Washington correspondent for the
Israeli daily Ha'aretz, have recently published Lords of the Land:
The War for Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories,
1967-2007. It is a detailed history of Israel's nearly forty-year
occupation of Gaza and the West Bank with a painful contention at its
core. The occupation, say Zertal and Eldar, has wounded Israel's very
psyche, damaging both its sense of self and its moral standing in the
world. "The prolonged military occupation and the Jewish settlements
that are perpetuating it have toppled Israeli governments," write the
authors, "and have brought Israel's democracy and its political
culture to the brink of an abyss."

The Hebrew version of this book was a best-seller in Israel, and
sparked a debate there on the devastating realities and consequences
of Israeli settlement policy. It would be useful to replicate that
debate here in the United States -- in the belly, as it were, of the
enabler. The book's unflinchingly provocative title is matched by a
narrative that pulls no punches, and the cast of villains (there are
precious few heroes) runs the gamut from Jewish militia terrorists
and their supporters in the Rabbinate to Labor Party apologists for
the settlers and feckless judges who looked the other way as settlers
created illegal outposts within Palestinian territory.

There are two sides to the settlement coin. The first is the settlers
themselves, who are for the most part religiously inspired,
unswervingly motivated, and highly effective. Religious Zionism was
very much in the backseat of the Zionist enterprise until 1967, but
once Israel assumed control of Judea and Samaria (as the settlers
refer to the West Bank), the national religious camp saw its moment
to seize the ideological steering wheel of state.'

Lees verder: http://www.alternet.org/story/75213/