Among the groups most stigmatized and condemned in Israeli society, especially by its media and academic elites are the ?settlers?. According to the critics, were it not for the settlers we would have already have come to the ideal situation of two states for two peoples, and real peace between them.
Yet, all we have learned in the past ten years since Oslo reveals, according to one of the foremost experts on Yasser Arafat and his recent biographer, Barry Rubin, that the Palestinians have never intended to make real peace with Israel. Their real intention was to make a temporary agreement in which they would establish a Palestinian state in part of the land West of the Jordan River and flood the Jewish state with Arab refugees. The true intention of Palestinian peacemakers, and it is certainly confirmed by their propaganda and their violent action of the past three years, is to create one state, one greater Palestine, which would include all the land West of the Jordan - and all the land east of it also.
If the settlers were an obstacle to the realization of the dubious Oslo agreement, then Israeli society as a whole has reason to be grateful for them. For they, in this sense, prevented withdrawals that would have furthered the Palestinian effort to do away completely with the Zionist entity.
Israel?s debt to the settlers goes beyond this. For, in a cynical post-Zionist atmosphere, they demonstrate every day a true love for the land of Israel. They also, by making the land a value, show the world that it is not the Arabs alone who place such great value on ?land?. For those Jews connected with their religious and historical heritage, their building and settling of the land, it must be remembered, is also a fulfilment of what the Jewish people have been commanded. It is a fulfilment of the Covenant promise made to the Jewish people, a promise that is a major center of the Biblical narrative, and of Jewish history.
The settlers remind many Israelis of what being here means, at least in one sense. It is not simply a ?settling of the land?, but rather a return of the people to their historical homeland after an exile of close to two?thousand years.
There are other gifts the settlers are to be admired for. They have been, after all, the one group in Israel most under Palestinian Arab fire and terror. On the whole, they have not retreated and not given in, but rather given an example of collective courage and solidarity.
Their courage is also exemplified in the fact that they are among the most dutiful Israeli citizens when it comes to serving in the army. The charge made against them, with some justification, that the army has to allocate forces and risk lives to protect the settlements, is reduced in force when one considers their own contribution to the Israeli Defense Forces. Among their ranks are many of the most dedicated soldiers of Israel.
They are also, by and large, a law-abiding and non-criminal population. There are, of course, exceptions and incidents in which individuals have taken the law into their own hands, or engaged in hooliganism. But the fact of the matter is that the settler population as a whole is one of the most considerate and public-spirited communities in Israel.
The value of Clal Yisrael lives for them in a way it does not in the hearts of many of the individuals who despise them.
At a time and in a worldwide atmosphere of narcissistic individualism as the dominant note, the settlers concern for and love of Clal Yisrael marks them out as in the vanguard of Israel?s population morally. The fact that they are attacked endlessly, blamed endlessly, for settling and living in the land of Israel (by and large, a land empty before they arrived) by other groups in Israeli society has not turned them into isolationists or haters- in-return. They instead go on striving to build the land, as well as bridges to the hearts of their fellow Israelis.
Perhaps, Israeli society as a whole should at last wake up and, instead of condemning them, strengthen the settlers in their enterprise.
Perhaps then, when the Arabs see all of Israeli society united in support of the settlers, they too will wake up and at last understand that they are not going to remove the Jews from the land. And so, they may come to the conclusion that it truly will be better for them to live in peace with us.
Yet, all we have learned in the past ten years since Oslo reveals, according to one of the foremost experts on Yasser Arafat and his recent biographer, Barry Rubin, that the Palestinians have never intended to make real peace with Israel. Their real intention was to make a temporary agreement in which they would establish a Palestinian state in part of the land West of the Jordan River and flood the Jewish state with Arab refugees. The true intention of Palestinian peacemakers, and it is certainly confirmed by their propaganda and their violent action of the past three years, is to create one state, one greater Palestine, which would include all the land West of the Jordan - and all the land east of it also.
If the settlers were an obstacle to the realization of the dubious Oslo agreement, then Israeli society as a whole has reason to be grateful for them. For they, in this sense, prevented withdrawals that would have furthered the Palestinian effort to do away completely with the Zionist entity.
Israel?s debt to the settlers goes beyond this. For, in a cynical post-Zionist atmosphere, they demonstrate every day a true love for the land of Israel. They also, by making the land a value, show the world that it is not the Arabs alone who place such great value on ?land?. For those Jews connected with their religious and historical heritage, their building and settling of the land, it must be remembered, is also a fulfilment of what the Jewish people have been commanded. It is a fulfilment of the Covenant promise made to the Jewish people, a promise that is a major center of the Biblical narrative, and of Jewish history.
The settlers remind many Israelis of what being here means, at least in one sense. It is not simply a ?settling of the land?, but rather a return of the people to their historical homeland after an exile of close to two?thousand years.
There are other gifts the settlers are to be admired for. They have been, after all, the one group in Israel most under Palestinian Arab fire and terror. On the whole, they have not retreated and not given in, but rather given an example of collective courage and solidarity.
Their courage is also exemplified in the fact that they are among the most dutiful Israeli citizens when it comes to serving in the army. The charge made against them, with some justification, that the army has to allocate forces and risk lives to protect the settlements, is reduced in force when one considers their own contribution to the Israeli Defense Forces. Among their ranks are many of the most dedicated soldiers of Israel.
They are also, by and large, a law-abiding and non-criminal population. There are, of course, exceptions and incidents in which individuals have taken the law into their own hands, or engaged in hooliganism. But the fact of the matter is that the settler population as a whole is one of the most considerate and public-spirited communities in Israel.
The value of Clal Yisrael lives for them in a way it does not in the hearts of many of the individuals who despise them.
At a time and in a worldwide atmosphere of narcissistic individualism as the dominant note, the settlers concern for and love of Clal Yisrael marks them out as in the vanguard of Israel?s population morally. The fact that they are attacked endlessly, blamed endlessly, for settling and living in the land of Israel (by and large, a land empty before they arrived) by other groups in Israeli society has not turned them into isolationists or haters- in-return. They instead go on striving to build the land, as well as bridges to the hearts of their fellow Israelis.
Perhaps, Israeli society as a whole should at last wake up and, instead of condemning them, strengthen the settlers in their enterprise.
Perhaps then, when the Arabs see all of Israeli society united in support of the settlers, they too will wake up and at last understand that they are not going to remove the Jews from the land. And so, they may come to the conclusion that it truly will be better for them to live in peace with us.