Very good Article by Jeffrey Goldberg on the settlements

I found a good article by the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg on the settlements written in 2004 called "Among the settlers".
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/31/among-the-settlers

The article starts with
"On a late winter’s day, a slight, blue-eyed boy rode a bicycle down an empty street in the militant Jewish ghetto of Hebron, in the West Bank. Clipped to the boy’s hair was a green kipa, crocheted and oversized in the style of the settlers. A damp wind was blowing, and a bank of clouds hovered over the city, but the boy was jacketless. Scattered piles of rubble and garbage, flecked with broken glass, lined the road.
The buildings along what the Jews call King David Street and the Arabs call Martyrdom Street are tightly packed and decaying. The Jews live mainly on the east side of the street, and the Arabs live to the west. When I visited, much of the area was under curfew. The Jewish zone, where some Arabs live, is “sterile,” a soldier told me: only Arabs who hold the proper pass are allowed to enter. The soldier, a paratrooper in the Israeli Army’s Fighting Pioneer Youth Brigade, was guarding Hadassah House, a three-story building where several families of settlers live. A brigade of soldiers, coils of razor wire, and hundreds of concrete barriers stand between Hebron’s fewer than eight hundred Jewish settlers and its hundred and fifty thousand Arab residents.
Across from Hadassah House is a school for Arab girls, called Córdoba, after the once-Muslim Spanish city. On one of its doors someone had drawn a blue Star of David. On another door a yellowing bumper sticker read, “Dr. Goldstein Cures the Ills of Israel.” The reference is to Baruch Goldstein, a physician from Brooklyn, who, in 1994, killed twenty-nine Muslims when they were praying in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, just down the road. Across the closed door of a Palestinian shop someone had written, in English, “Arabs Are Sand (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s.”
Jewish invective is answered by Muslim insults; over another door was a hand-painted verse from the Koran, attesting to the undying perfidy of the Jews. Nearby, peeling off a wall, was a poster dedicated to a ten-month-old Jewish girl named Shalhevet Pass, who was shot through the head three years ago by a Palestinian sniper. “May God Avenge Her Blood,” it read. Pass’s father is in jail in Israel; last July, the police found eight bricks of explosives in the trunk of his car.
A group of yeshiva students appeared, walking in the direction of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a two-thousand-year-old stone palace. It sits atop the cave in which, tradition holds, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives are buried. It is because of the tomb that Hebron is considered a holy city. The yeshiva boys wore flannel shirts and jeans. They had the wispy beards of young men who have never shaved.
Two Arab girls, their heads covered by scarves, books clutched to their chests, left the Córdoba School, and were walking toward the yeshiva boys.
“(*)(*)(*)(*)s!” one of the boys yelled, in Arabic.
“Do you let your brothers (*)(*)(*)(*) you?” another one yelled. I stopped one of the students and asked why he was cursing the girls. He was red-faced, and his black hair was covered with a blue knit skullcap.
“What are you, a goy?” he asked.
The girls fled down the street, and the boys disappeared. I asked the soldier guarding Hadassah House why he hadn’t intervened. “They didn’t hurt them,” he said."

In the article Goldberg later meets with Anat Cohen a settler leader in Kiryat Arba, here is except from it

"Cohen pulled up a few minutes later, in a station wagon, its windshield cracked from stone-throwing attacks. She is one of the leaders of the Hebron Jews. A short woman in her early forties, she had a taut, windburned face and muscular arms, and her fingernails were chewed and dirty. As we walked through her front door, into a stone-walled living room, I asked her how she could let her son play amid the barbed wire and soldiers and barricades, and with snipers in the hills above.
“Hebron is ours,” she said. “Why shouldn’t he play?”
“Because he could get killed,” I said.
“There’s a bullet out there for each one of us,” she said. “But you can always die. At least his death here would sanctify God’s name.”
Cohen and other settlers say that they are obliged to fulfill God’s command that Jews settle the land of Israel. But there are safer places to live than King David Street in Hebron. I asked Cohen how she reconciled her decision to settle here with an even greater imperative of Judaism, the saving of lives—in this case, those of her children.
She glared at me. “Hellenizers”—secular Jews—“will never understand,” she said with contempt.
Anat Cohen is known, even among Hebron’s Jews, who are some of the least placatory of all the settlers, for her ferocity. According to Army commanders, she has cursed and insulted soldiers, and assaulted Arabs. The first time we met, she told me that she was a soldier of God."
Cohen has about ten children—like certain religious Jews, she refused to specify the number, in order to confuse the evil eye. The Cohen house is cramped and dark, and there are few toys. On one wall hangs a framed photograph of Meir Kahane, the zealot rabbi from Brooklyn, who advocated the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel. Behind a stone pillar hangs a photograph of Baruch Goldstein, with the inscription “The Saint Dr. Goldstein.” A candle burned in a makeshift shrine, in memory of Cohen’s brother, Gilad Zar. He was the security chief of the settlements in Samaria, the territory of the northern West Bank. He was killed three years ago by terrorists."

In the article Goldberg also meets with Moshe Levinger founder of Kiryat Arba here is excerpt from him

"I told him that the police seemed uneasy about his presence in the tomb, and I asked whether they were worried that he would lash out at the Palestinians.
“The Arabs know to behave like good boys around us,” he said.
Levinger first came to Hebron in 1968, after Israel seized the West Bank in the Six-Day War. He rented rooms in an Arab hotel, in order to hold a Passover Seder. Then he refused to leave. He struck a deal with the Israeli government, and moved his family and his followers to a hill just northeast of Hebron, where, with the state’s coöperation, they built the settlement called Kiryat Arba. There are now seven thousand settlers there. In 1979, his wife, Miriam, led a group of settler women in an unruly takeover of the Hadassah House building. The squatters stayed, and a community grew up around them.
In 1988, Levinger killed a Palestinian shoe-store owner in Hebron. Levinger told the police that he was defending himself from a group of stone throwers. He served thirteen weeks in an Israeli jail for the killing. He told me once, “I’m not happy when any living creature dies—an Arab, a fly, a donkey.”
In the Israel he envisaged, Levinger said, Arabs would be allowed to stay only so long as they “behave themselves. Foreign residents”—Levinger’s designation for Arabs—“will be allowed to stay in Israel if they follow our laws and don’t demand privileges.” He added that they might vote “for mayors and such” but not for Prime Minister. He did not believe that the Arabs would acquiesce to such an arrangement, and that is why he advocated “transfer”—a euphemism for mass expulsion. “Whoever hurts Jews will be expelled,” he said. "

The article mentions Tommy Lapid father of Yair Lapid leader of Yesh Atid and also leader of short lived Shinui party; Tommy Lapid told Goldberg that
"that the settlers have three reasons for hope: “They believe there will come a point in the critical clash between us and the Palestinians when it would come time to transfer the Palestinians to Jordan; the second thing they hope for is the great American aliyah—a million more Jews coming to Israel. The third, and by far the most stupid, thing is that they believe God will help them.”

He also interviewed far right Likud activist Moshe Feiling who lives in a settlement
"Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state?” Feiglin said to me. “For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state. Democracy should serve the values of the state, not destroy them.” In any case, Feiglin said, “You can’t teach a monkey to speak and you can’t teach an Arab to be democratic. You’re dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. Muhammad, their prophet, was a robber and a killer and a liar. The Arab destroys everything he touches.”

While going to Yitzhar another one of the extreme settlements to meet one of the settlers, Goldberg meet with Muhammad Zaban a Palestinian farmer who said
"The settlers come and they curse at us and attack us. They beat up a man with a metal pipe.” The settlers, he said, stole the olives, then burned the trees. “These trees were for my sons,” he said. His children had lost their inheritance, and he had lost his livelihood. “I have to work in another man’s fields now,” he said."

After Goldberg came to Yitzhar he meet with rabbi David Dudkevitch, when he asked if Yitzhar youths cut down trees of Palestinian farmers he responded with
“I’m not hearing you,” he replied. I asked again. “I’m not hearing what you’re saying. You don’t understand me. I’m not hearing and I will continue not to hear.” Then he walked away.

After Goldberg meet with Yehuda Liebman official for yeshiva Joseph still lives in Yitzhar he asked about the trees of Palestinian farmers being cutdown and he responded with
“What is an olive tree compared to the burial place of Joseph, the son of Jacob?” he said.
To the farmer who supports his family with the tree, I said, the tree is important.
“But the farmer is an Arab,” Liebman replied. “He shouldn’t be here at all. All this land is Jewish land. It is meant for the Jews by God Himself.”

Goldberg in the article also went to the Gaza settlement of Nev eh Dekalim(article was written in 2004 before disengagement) and meet with settler Moshe Saperstein and his wife Rachel Sapterstein, he noted
"I raised the question of whether Jewish parents who place their children within range of Palestinian rockets had their priorities in order. Exasperated, Rachel said, “If I believe in holy law, that the settlement of the land of Israel is a commandment of God, and I want my children to be raised as Jews, I have to take them where they’re going to fulfill this mitzvah(commandment). I have to take my child and physically he has to settle the land with me. I can’t say I won’t do things because I don’t want him to suffer.”
Saperstein said, “If I believed that if all the settlers disappeared tomorrow then peace and happiness would reign forever, that we could live in peace as Jews in what’s left of our homeland, then I would seriously consider picking up and going somewhere else.”
Rachel looked at her husband.
“I wouldn’t,” she said."

Goldberg also said to Moshe Saperstein
"I suggested that he try to imagine himself in the place of a Palestinian. “You’re a Palestinian, you’re here, you have your farm, your grandparents are from here(both David Ben Gurion foundering father of Israel in an address to mapai political committee in 1938 addressing Arab point of view said something similar and same with Moshe Dayan in eulogy for Roti Rotenberg member of kibbutz was killed by Arab infiltrators in 1956), and—”
But Moshe interrupted me. “Stop being Jewish!” he yelled. “Stop being Jewish! Only a Jew would say, ‘Imagine yourself as a Palestinian.’ Could you imagine a Palestinian imagining himself as a Jew?”
The right with those like Naftali Bennet refusing to see Arab point of view goes against Israeli history since as noted above founders of Israel people who without them there would be no state of Israel understood Arab point of view and several Israeli security experts like former Shin Bet heads Avraham Shalom and Carmi Gillon also have too.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Quote/dayanq.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...aust-survivor-compares-Israel-to-Nazi-Germany

No Western democratic countries have this situation where a group of supremacist in the Israeli case Jewish supremacists that openly venerate Baruch Goldstein(who massacred 29 Palestinians in 1994), Meir Kahane(who called all Arabs including Israeli citizens to be expelled from Israel) and harass Palestinians including attack their property and livelihood by cutting down their trees like in Kiryat Arba and Yitzhar, Jewish supremacist communities that are protected by their country's army, their schools are paid for by the state(yeshivas in Israel including those in Yitzhar and Kiryat Arba get state funding), Jewish supremacist communities that due to influence of settler movement in government even these Jewish supremacist communities(note I'm not referring to all settlements here I'm referring to extreme settlements like Yitzhar and Kiryat Arba) are not removed.
You can't call Israel a fully democratic country when above information is true, you also can't call the occupation moral and fitting of a Western democratic country when above information is true. This also shows the large discount between Israeli within green lines where a community like Kiryat Arba and Yitzhar would not be tolerated and West Bank where as former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin described a “de facto State of Judea is being formed” in the West Bank, he argued, where “law enforcement is shockingly weak toward Jews” and “anarchistic, anti-state, violent, and racist ideologies are forming … and they are treated tolerantly by the Israeli legal and judicial system.” It's this part of Israel that makes Herzl, Dayan, Ben Gurion, and Abba Eban and others roll in their graves(Bennet and others claim they are patriotic when it's opposite, when their actions are causing people mentioned roll in their graves).
http://www.jta.org/2015/08/07/news-...ist-ideology-growing-among-religious-zionists

I have noticed on this forum and in American politics(ironically in Israel it's more open when you have former prime ministers saying if you don't give up West Bank you become an apartheid state like Ehud Barak and late Rabin, and have former Shin Bet heads issuing harsh criticism with late Avraham Shalom stating “[We’ve become] a brutal occupation force similar to the Germans in World War II,") on this issue it's you a black or white approach a you are either with us or against us.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...ust-survivor-compares-Israel-to-Nazi-Germany#

For those on the extreme left that don't believe Israel has a right to exist and/or think all Zionists are bad and that Zionism is an evil ideology; Israel has a right to exist while I oppose the occupation as it's immoral and makes it impossible for Israel to be a Jewish and democratic state and even with Israel's atrocities in the past including deliberating targeting civilians during the 1950's it's far from the country in the world with worst human rights record with countries like Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, North Korea etc are much worst examples. Israel's foundering while not entirely sinful was sinful including their founders like David Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan(although both changed from hawks to doves before they died with David Ben Gurion saying Israel should withdraw from the territories except for Golan Heights and East Jerusalem before he died in 1973 and Moshe Dayan shortly before he died he founded the Telem party in 1981 which called for Israeli withdrawal from the territories). However, that is true of most countries in the world. Look at United States with millions of dead Indians, slavery, and persecution of African-Americans continuing after slavery due to Jim Crow laws and never mostly ending till after the civil rights movement of the 1960's(this makes founders of United States war criminals by today's standards, which many if not most countries founders would fit that description), many don't realize also the irony of the first African-American president Baruch Obama being a democratic, the democratic party founders would have been horrified if they knew that, the democratic party started as democratic-republican party founded in 1792 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison(both slave owners) in opposition to federalists led by George Washington and Andrew Hamilton. The party split into democratic party led by Andrew Jackson. The same Andrew Jackson that was a slave owner and known for trial of tears causing thousands of Indians to be expelled and dying along the way. From the 1820's until after Lyndon Johnson the South which persecuted African-Americans from before foundering of United States until civil right laws of the 1960's were passed was strongly democrat and very conservative with Republican party founded in 1854 to oppose spread of slavery to new states and was until recently the liberal party. This was just one example too.

In contrast Theodore Herzl who founded Zionism wrote a novel called Altneuland(translates to Old New Land) envisions a Jewish state where there is a Jewish president and Arab vice president(an Israeli Arab Majalli Wahabi was acting president of Israel for one day) and the novel also notes "All non-Jews have equal rights, and an attempt by a fanatical rabbi to disenfranchise the non-Jewish citizens of their rights fails in the election which is the center of the main political plot of the novel". Which in the last election Yachad a party that included Kahanists and former Shas member Eli Yishai failed to cross the threshold. In contrast, for most of America's history until civil right laws passed during 1960's one or both of the major parties supported giving only rights to white men(initially landowning too with those poor initially denied right to vote until 1820's).
https://books.google.com/books?id=O...v=onepage&q=Altneuland arab president&f=false
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl

It's important to note that Zionism started off as a national liberation movement for Jews to find home after being persecuted for many years and after Dreyfus affair in France during 1890's where an army officer Alfred Dreyfus of Jewish descent was framed by the military for being a traitor by selling secrets to the German embassy in Paris. Israel exists due to chain reactions of events after Dreyfus affair and Russian Jews fleeing probably the worst persecution of Jews in their history aside from the holocaust to Palestine. If anyone wants a more detail explanation on origin of Zionism/Israel and why Israel can also be called little Russia and unlike Russia an actual success story, link to that explanation is below.
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=426570&p=1065409576#post1065409576

It's important to note many countries including United States was founded on bluntly stealing land from people. Anti Zionists seem to claim the same thing about Israel when it doesn't apply. The founders of Israel came to Palestine during first aliyah of 1880's and second aliyah from 1904-1914 from Russia fleeing pogroms where thousands of Jews were being massacred. At that time Palestine was controlled by the Ottoman empire. At that time the Ottoman empire was known as the sick man for Europe with it's power declining especially after industrial revolution and enlightenment along with it's tolerance declining culminating in the Armenian genocide during WW1. After WW1 the Ottoman empire collapsed with it's territory in the middle east outside present day Turkish Republic divided them into separate mandates temporary colonies that ended after their population was deemed fit for independence. During WW1 the Balfour declaration was issued; the Balfour declaration promised a Jewish home in Palestine. This arguable contradicted McMahon-Hussein Correspondences. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondences were an exchange of letters between Hussein Bin Ali Sharif of Mecca and Henry McMahon British high commissioner in Egypt during 1915-1916. In these correspondences the British agreed to offer an Arab state(which would have consisted of present day coastal western Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan(was not covered by exception before since it's not west of districts in present day Syria), and arguable Palestine) to Hussein Bin Ali Sharif in return for Hussein Bin Ali agreeing to rebel against the Ottomans which they did in 1916. One part of McMahon-Hussein Correspondences says
"The districts of Mersina and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab, and must on that account be excepted from the proposed limits and boundaries. With the above modification and without prejudice to our existing treaties concluded with Arab Chiefs, we accept these limits and boundaries, and in regard to the territories therein in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to interests of her ally France, I am empowered in the name of the Government of Great Britain to give the following assurance and make the following reply to your letter: Subject to the above modifications, Great Britain is prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca"
Area of Palestine is West although not directly(West of these districts is present day Lebanon) of these districts it's Southwest of these districts which has caused historians to disagree whether McMahon-Hussein Correspondences included Palestine in the proposed Arab state.

Regardless, there was also the secret Sykes-Picot agreement which contradicted McMahon-Hussein Correspondences signed between British diplomat Mark Sykes and French diplomat Francois Georges-Picot. They agreed to divide the Middle East up into areas of French(composing of present day south eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon) and British(composing present day Israel, Jordan, and southern Iraq) influences. After WW1 ended at Versailles peace treaty conference the 1919 Faisal(Faisal Hussein son of Hussein bin Ali briefly King of Syria after WW1, was deposed and fled to Iraq becoming King of Iraq, the monarchy would last until 1958 after Karim Qasim revolted proclaiming a Republic, his brother Abdullah would become King of Jordan, Hussein Bin Ali during Kingdom of Hejaz during WW1 in what is now Western coastal Saudi Arabia and would last until 1925 when Ibn Al Saud founder of Saudi Arabia conquered Kingdom of Hejaz along with of Arabian peninsula with disastrous consequences)-Weizmann(Chaim Weizmann who would later became first president of Israel) agreement. The agreement was an alliance between Zionists and Arabs with both sides agreeing to support each other side's causes. In what is one of the little known big mistakes in history the agreement was not carried out as it was dependent on an Arab state being created as agreed upon on in McMahon-Hussein Correspondences. Instead the Middle East of the former Ottoman empire was divided up into French and British mandates.

Jewish immigration to Palestine continued with many fleeing pogroms done by both sides that killed 180,000-200,000 during Russian civil war between 1917-22, and continued afterwards. This led to tensions between Jews and Arabs in Palestine with Arabs under the leadership of Haj Amin Al Husein who would later during WW2 collaborate with Hitler and recruit Bosnians Muslims into the S.S. often massacring Jews like in Hebron during 1929(67 were killed to be fair most of the 435 Jews in Hebron survived the massacre mostly due to their Arab neighbors hiding Jews in their houses with one Arab, Haj Eissa El Kourdieh saved 33 Jews by hiding them in his cellar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
https://books.google.com/books?id=w...page&q=russian civil war 200,000 Jews&f=false

Jews responding to these attacks by forming the militia Haganah(which in Hebrew means defense) in 1921 after Arab 1920 and 1921 riots. In 1930 the militia split after Haganah was accused of failing to protect Jewish settlements from attack, causing Irgun to be formed. Unlike Irgun and later Stern Gang, the Haganah was not a terrorist group. The Haganah was the mainstream militia and armed wing of Jewish agency headed by David Ben Gurion which represented Jews in Palestine before state of Israel was formed. During the Arab revolt from 1936-1939 when the Arabs revolted against the British, hundreds of Jews(most of them civilians) were killed by Arab terrorists. The Haganah responded with policy of restraint and the Irgun responded with Jewish terrorism bombing Arab market places and buses.

 

After WW2 the British begin discussions of how to grant Palestine independent, they discussed the issue with leadership on both Arab and Jewish side, the Arabs only agreed to Palestine becoming one Arab majority state, the Jews agreed to a Jewish Palestine, or if Palestine could not be granted Independence yet, for unrestricted immigration and settlement throughout Palestine, and at last resort a Jewish state in an adequate area of Palestine. At an impasse, the British referred this issue to the United Nations to recommend a solution. This led to the UN partition plan in November 1947 which recommended partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, the Jews accepted it and the Arabs rejected it. The Arabs responded with a strike and violence against Jews which the Irgun responded by terrorist attacks against Arab civilians like Damascus Gate and Haifa oil refinery bombing sparking an inter-communal civil war in Palestine. The British unwilling to enforce anything both sides didn't agree to announced in December 1947 the end of the mandate to be next May. The day the British left Palestine and mandate ending May 14 1948 Israel proclaimed it's independence. When people talk about 1948 war and Arab refugees from that war, they fail to note that until Israel's declaration of independence and war was limited to a civil war there hardly any acts of expulsion
(Shai military intelligence wing of the Haganah in a document called "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948(December 1947-June 1948 time period during inter-communal civil war and before 5 Arab armies invaded Israel)," dated 30 June 1948 noted that t least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations. To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%… of the emigration." A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases)
with most of them fleeing after an assault on an Arab village by one of the Jewish militia(terrorist in case of Irgun and Stern Gang) groups, once 5 Arab armies invaded the newly proclaimed the state of Israel that is when acts of expulsion as part of plan D occurred which allowed for Arabs to be expelled from villages deemed hostile and attacking nearby Jewish villages and towns. After this attempt to wipe out the newly proclaimed Jewish state, an armistice was reached with 5 Arab armies that invaded Israel with Gaza left under Egyptian control and West Bank under Jordanian control and Israel becoming member of United Nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_...mporary_mediation_and_the_Lausanne_Conference

When talking about refugees people seem to forget after 48 war roughly similar number of Jews fled/expelled from Arab countries to Israel and was integrated into Israeli society while Palestinians refugees weren't integrated into Arab society. For those that think Palestinians have a right of return to Israel, they don't and nor would any Israeli government left or right grant that. The Palestinian refugee exodus was caused by Arabs rejecting UN partition plan and responding with violence against Jews in Palestine and as noted above most acts of expulsion was after 5 Arab armies invaded and attempted to end the newly proclaimed Jewish state. During this period exchanges of population occurred not just in Palestine but in other wars like Turkish war of independence after WW1, expulsion of millions of Germans also occurred after WW2 by the Soviets, and at the same time as 48 war in the Indian subcontinent there was an exchange of population involving millions in partition of that subcontinent. Ironically decades after Arabs rejected 1947 partition plan there probably will be a Palestinian state sometime in the coming years which would be mean roughly same borders as partition plan(Gaza and West Bank was part of proposal for Arab state under partition minus some of Negev and Galilee which became part of Israel after Arabs tried to wipe to destroy Jewish state the day they proclaimed their independence).
http://ismi.emory.edu/home/resource...PALESTINE-HMG termination of Mandate 1948.pdf
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=1947+partion+plan+map&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

 

While I despair the occupation for reasons mentioned before, it should be noted that contrary to what extreme left is not the worst human right violation with examples mentioned before like Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria are much worst. Other occupations like Tibet and suppression of Chechnya independence(to be fair in that conflict the Chechens are also guilty of crimes like Beslan massacre) by Russia after fall of Soviet Union are much worst. It should also be noted that occupation is accidental, during six day war with 3 armies massing on Israel's borders and after strait of Tiran blocked(which is an act of war) Israel warned Jordan who then controlled West Bank not to enter the war, ignoring Israel's warning Jordanian troops under Egyptian command fired artillery from East Jerusalem into Israel prompting Israeli army to reaction leading to control of West Bank)

Anti-Zionists also seem to think the Middle East would be better off if Israel was not formed. However that is not the case. In the Middle East there is no society that is as free and prosperous(arguable some of the Gulf states like UAE are however large part if not most of their residents aren't citizens and are migrant workers which are treated poorly) as Israel within green lines. Let's say the Dreyfus affair never occurred causing the state of Israel to never be formed due to no Zionist movement forming. Before WW1 Palestine was part of the Ottoman province of Syria and would likely have been part of present day Syria after WW1. The same Syria where a civil war having nothing to do with Israel has been raging for 4 years causing 250,000 to die nearly 3 times more that died(92,000) between 1945 and 1995 in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Second link below describes in more depth why Middle East would be worse if Israel was not formed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab–Israeli_conflict
http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=426570&p=1065409576#post1065409576

There are those on the opposite side claim that criticizing Israel at all is being anti-Semitic(a way to sum these up is that to the extreme left Israel can do no right and for extreme right Israel can do no wrong). That is simply not true. I have already described founders of Israel like David Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan people of which the state of Israel would not be possible harshly criticizing Israel. I have already show examples of former Shin Bet heads of the highest security positions in the state of Israel like Avraham Shalom and Carmi Gillon harshly criticizing Israel. By their warped logic all of these Jews which have served Israel are anti-Semitic. By their warped logic too anyone that supports a withdrawal from Israel wants Israel to disappear when means according to them 69 members out of 120 of Knesset(UTJ, Meretz, Zionist Union, Yesh Atud, Kuluna, and right wing Yisrael Beitenu) are calling for Israel to disappear since these parties to various extents support a withdrawal from most of West Bank. By their warped logic most high ranking security officials like former Shin Bet heads and distinguished generals like Amos Yadlan, Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz, are calling for Israel to disappear since they support a withdrawal from most of West Bank. There is even a movement formed by last year called Commanders for Israel's security that includes 188 retired senior officials of the Israel’s security agencies. Together they represent 5,600 years of security experience within the ranks of the IDF, Mossad, Shin-Bet and the Israel Police. The movement is non partisan and consists of members of veteran security officials who seek to promote a regional politico-security initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and normalize relations with moderate Arab states. Yet again according to warped logic of those who say that criticizing Israel is being anti-Semitic this group entirely composed of vetern security officials is anti Semitic and is calling for Israel to disappear.Israel also has survived without the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 and against 5 Arab armies in 1948 and 3 in 1967. Security officials like Shlomo Brom former director of IDF strategic planning also notes this when he said "Israel is a state without strategic depth, regardless of whether its border is along the 1967 lines or the Jordan River. It can create “artificial strategic depth” by “building its relationship” with its neighbors." Nehemiah Dagan former chief education officer and former first commander of coordination headquarters also noted "Netanyahu’s claim that Israel’s 1967 borders are indefensible is inaccurate. “We were small and we won” several wars in which conditions were less even less advantageous. “The borders are defensible.” Former Brigade commander in Gaza Shaul Arieli also noted "In 25 years, we had five wars with Egypt, from different territorial positions, and before there was a peace agreement, no borders deterred them from going to war against us. Control of the territory can be replaced with advantages of other security arrangements.”
http://en.cis.org.il/members/
http://www.israelnsp.org/what-they-say/defensible-borders.html

This is why Palestinians opposing normalization with Israel hurts their cause. To be fair, I could see why a Palestinian would not want normalization with people that often demolish their home, arbitrarily arrest them, arbitrarily destroy their olive trees destroying your livelihood, that used to regularly torture them, etc. Ehud Barak Israel's most decorated soldier concurred stating in an interview with Gideon Levy in 1998 that "If I were a Palestinian at the right age, I would have joined one of the terrorist organizations at a certain stage." However, as painful as it would be it would be in their interest to work with commanders for Israel's security and Israel national security project as they both agree that the occupation should end.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ehud_Barak

Another thing is that people tend to ignore Israel's human right abuses due to much worst human right records of countries like Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia etc. However I don't view Israel on the level of countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia(to be fair we probably shouldn't be given them military aide along with other repressive countries like Bahrain however aide to Saudi Arabia and other countries like Bahrain however both democrats and republicans support these countries) where testimony for women is worth half as much as men. I don't view Israel on the same levels as countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran where there is the death penalty of homosexuals. I don't view Israel on the same level as a country like Syria(to be fair more should be done like a no fly zone in Syria, however the Republicans which do have majority in both houses of Congress is not pressuring Obama to do that) where barrel bombs are dropped on civilians and chemical weapons used against civilians. I view Israel as a democratic western state and put them up on the same level as countries like Canada, France, Britain, United States, Netherlands, etc. The question is the occupation fitting with Western democratic values, the question is if France, Netherlands, etc. would do the same(have an enclave of government protected and supported (for example white)supremacist communities attacking non white nearby population), would the world tolerate that behavior? The answer is no.

One last point is that in addition to nearly all of Israel's founders having giving up on support of greater Israel and most high ranking former security officials and generals don't support greater Israel, in addition most American Jews don't believe in that part of Israel. Many seem falsely claim that to be pro-Israel you can't be liberal. While those on the extreme left who don't believe Israel has a right to exist or compare Israel to the holocaust or view them as the same as Russia, Saudi Arabia etc. are arguable anti semitic, that is not the mainstream view. There is also the false claim that Baruch Obama is anti-Israel. Under Obama Israel has received billions of dollars of military, aide provided Iron dome to Israel which has saved many lives, and has used UN veto before. Even recently part of the reason Abbas's speech at UN wasn't a bombshell was due to American pressure to drop that part of speech. Three weeks ago Abbas tried to arrange a meeting with Bibi through former minister Meir Sheetrit. However due to American pressure, the meeting was dropped. Obama doesn't believe in greater Israel often citing it violates Israel's declaration of independence and vision of Israel that founders of Israel envisaged. Israel itself was founded by socialists(all of sudden arch enemy of Republicans even though past leaders like Richard Nixon and Theodore Roosevelt supported for example universal health care). American Jews themselves are one of the most liberal populations with a poll noting
"One of the most interesting findings of the respected Pew Research Center’s poll of American Jews was the continuing theme of Jewish liberalism and approval of Barack Obama’s performance — a vote of confidence in the president exceeded only by that of African-American Protestants and Hispanic Catholics.
“Jews are among the most strongly liberal, Democratic groups in U.S. politics,” the Pew report said. “There are more than twice as many self-identified Jewish liberals as conservatives, while among the general public, this balance is nearly reversed. In addition, about seven-in-ten Jews identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. Jews are more supportive of President Barack Obama than are most other religious groups. And about eight-in-ten Jews say homosexuality should be accepted by society.”
http://www.jewishjournal.com/bill_boyarsky/article/pew_finds_jews_mostly_liberal
http://www.politicalforum.com/middle-east/426668-abbass-speech-un.html

 

The history of Hebron should be included.. It was an Arab city until 1968.... for a thousand years prior.

 

Jews have always lived in Hebron, until the bigots started massacering them in the 1920s.

 

The first Jews in Hebron arrive about 1500 AD after they were run out of Spain.. They were a small group and they assimilated without incident. ... but of course there was no Zionism back then.

 

lol....wrong

After the fall of the city, Jerusalem's conqueror, Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab permitted Jewish people to return and to construct a small synagogue within the Herodian precinct

 

WRONG!!

Jews have always been in Palestine

 

Jews have been in Palestine for thousands of years and were a majority until 400's.

 

where do you get such nonsense?

Jews were not permitted to reside in Hebron under Byzantine rule

After the fall of the city, Jerusalem's conqueror, Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab permitted Jewish people to return and to construct a small synagogue within the Herodian precinct

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron#Jewish_period

[MENTION=63572]Margot2[/MENTION]

 

Did you read the article?