Herzl vs Hobbes

No group could better undermine the case for Jewish rights in the West Bank than settler radicals.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
masked topless settler 224 88 (photo credit: AP)
masked topless settler 224 88
(photo credit: AP)
On Sunday, the Associated Press disseminated worldwide a photo of "a Jewish settler" confronting unseen Palestinians in northern Samaria. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what to make of this: a bare-chested, pipe-wielding teen, ski-mask drawn over his face, goth T-shirt tied to a belt holding up camouflage trousers. Move over, Peace Now. You've met your match. No group could better undermine the case for Jewish rights in the West Bank than settler radicals. In a world predisposed to see all of Judea and Samaria, and east Jerusalem, as Palestinian; at a time when our government, such as it is, remains incapable of articulating where our boundaries should be drawn - Israel can ill afford settlers behaving badly. The phenomenon is nothing new; but lately it has spiked, serving to close minds and harden hearts to Israel's legitimate security concerns and historic civilizational tie to the West Bank. This behavior bolsters the notion that peace can be achieved only by a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines. TAKE WHAT happened outside Otniel, south of Hebron, on Wednesday, when Palestinian Arabs came to harvest their olives in coordination with the IDF. Suddenly, a group of 10 masked far-right youths appeared and instigated a confrontation. One soldier was hit on the head with a club. Another rowdy tried to grab a soldier's weapon, and was himself injured. Or take what happened Saturday in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. Four Jewish youths were captured on camera - in footage broadcast incessantly on Arab stations - beating Abed Hashalmoun, a news agency photographer, as well as a foreign volunteer who had come to help local Palestinians pick olives. The olive pickers had made no effort to liaison with the authorities, even though they were operating near a Jewish enclave, on Shabbat, in the heart of a tinderbox. It doesn't take a suspicious mind to surmise that their presence was something of a set-up, and that the settlers should have had the wisdom to stay away. The confrontation will now no doubt join other voluminous footage of "settlers behaving badly" already flooding the Web. Also this week, radicals, many of them minors, protested outside the home of OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni. The message was explicit: "You try bringing your law to our turf, and we'll make you miserable." Some settler leaders - think of them as "adult hilltop youth" - have been sending another not-so-subtle message: The more proponents of a deal with the Palestinians push their policies, the more settlers will react with violence on the ground. It's a tactic as brilliant as it is indefensible. Because we do not live in a Hobbesian state of nature. Let's be clear. Only a small number of Israelis living over the Green Line are extremists. And in some areas, olive harvests really do pose a genuine security dilemma - with trees growing in proximity to schools, for instance. The possibility of terrorists exploiting the harvest season to infiltrate a settlement is not far-fetched; nor that farmers might pass on settlement security information. Also, while kindhearted Israelis with pure motives have aided Palestinian harvesting, not a few foreign and Israeli "peace activists" have come on the scene to exacerbate tensions and provoke confrontation. SETTLER leaders recently launched an advertising campaign to tell Israelis why we should feel connected to Judea and Samaria. But radicals running wild in the hills of Judea and Samaria achieve the opposite. How sad that a relatively small group of fanatics has been able to divert the spotlight onto their misbehavior. As he helped pick olives north of Ramallah on Wednesday, reporters in tow, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad declared, in a sly juxtaposition: "The settlers being here [in the West Bank] is in itself illegitimate. And, on top of that, they engage in acts of violence..." Meanwhile, in its long tradition of loaded questions, last week's Economist wondered: "Will the settlers stymie a two-state solution?" Of course it is Palestinian intransigence that is torpedoing such a solution. But with everyone focused on settlers behaving badly, the Palestinians are getting a free ride.