Israelis Must Liberate Themselves From the Settler Occupation - Opinion - Haaretz.com
On October 7, Hamas put the Palestinians and the conflict back on the Israeli agenda. But for now, the discussion is taking place with only one side of the political map present – the radical settler right. As of now, the settlers are the only ones offering a diplomatic vision. Granted, it's a crazy vision, but it is at least a vision – occupying the Gaza Strip, settling it and transferring its Palestinian residents elsewhere.
At the "resettlement conference" attended by 11 ministers and 15 Knesset members, someone held a sign saying "only transfer will bring peace." This is obviously fundamentally ridiculous. But it's astonishing that I can't even imagine a parallel conference at which anyone would dare to wave a sign with the word "peace."
In recent years, we've witnessed a process in which the settler right was allowed to say anything while the left's vocabulary kept shrinking. I'll qualify that by acknowledging this wasn't true across the board; the liberal left's flagship project was political correctness and policing language and thought.
And in fact, it succeeded in policing the right on issues such as gender and racism. The number of rightist politicians who will slip up and condemn homosexuality, publicly objectify women or use derogatory terms for Blacks can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Even ultra-Orthodox politicians are careful.
But the settler right has successfully advanced its own political correctness project in recent years. How many people have dared to identify as "left-wing" recently, or fight "the occupation," dream about "peace," use the phrase "the occupied territories" or promote ideas such as "land for peace" and "two states for two peoples"?
File photo: Ariel view of the West Bank settlement of Ariel.Credit: Ariel Schalit/AP
The settlement enterprise didn't just expand in the occupied territories. It also settled in people's hearts and occupied Israelis' language and political thought. Instead of using the Hebrew term "mitnachlim" for "settlers," it forced us to adopt the term "mityashvim" ("inhabitants"). Instead of the "hitnachlut" enterprise, it was the "hityashvut" enterprise. The goal was to depict the settlers as continuing the path of Israel's early pioneers, who were called mityashvim.
As the years passed, this laundering of their political crime enabled them to demand sympathy for the difficulties of life in an occupied territory and the price in blood that their criminal enterprise exacted. Their political correctness enterprise forced the public conversation to treat a terror attack in the West Bank as identical to one in Israel, and forbade any distinction between an attack on civilians within Israel and an attack on settlers.
'Hilltop Youth' settlers in the West Bank in February, 2023.Credit: Hadas Parush
This week, we received an instructive example of the settlers' policing of political correctness when the army dared conduct an exercise simulating the kidnapping of a Palestinian by a settler. Who wasn't forced to respond to this necessary decision – necessary, because the IDF is legally obligated to protect the Palestinians, especially when, under cover of the war with Hamas, violence against them has soared?
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated in this festival of fake condemnations. And in the end, even the chief of staff and the head of the IDF's Central Command were forced to cave in and apologize. But apologize for what? For having done their jobs? No. For having cracked the wall of silencing and concealment of the truth about the settlement enterprise, the settlers, and the violence.
Settlers and Palestinian protesters clashing in the West Bank Village of Asira al-Qibliya.Credit: Majdi Mohammed/AP
Erasing the term "settlement," erasing the political, legal, historical, identifying and moral difference between civilians inside Israel and settlers in the West Bank, has dealt a mortal blow to the possibility of any significant debate in Israeli political life.
Thus, it's hard to overstate the importance of Joe Biden's executive order last week that enables sanctions to be imposed on settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Any Israeli revival requires returning to the distinction between sovereign Israel and the West Bank, between the legitimate Israel and the occupying one, between civilians and settlers. To liberate Palestinians from the occupation, we first have to liberate Israelis from the settler occupation.