The oft-talked about settlers are a small percentage of the Israeli population. Of that minimal number, a small subset of extremists manages to give Jews and Israelis a bad name, all while evoking religion as the root cause.
This weekend, a group of settlers torched a mosque in the West Bank and scrawled racist slogans that serve to denigrate individuals and an entire group of people based on their nationality and religious views.
The event elicited shock from domestic and international observers. Unfortunately, the mentality of these settlers is nothing new and we should have seen this coming. In fact, events like this have occurred regularly over the last few years, albeit in varying degrees.
These settlers justify establishing houses in the West Bank and attempting to push Palestinians out by claiming the West Bank is an irremovable part of Israel and call it Judea and Samaria, its biblical name, to reinforce their religious connection to the land.
These settlers hide behind religion to excuse their actions and justify any means necessary to ensure the West Bank will remain under Israeli control in the future. However, Judaism condemns senseless violence and discrimination; these settlers are soiling the religion they claim to hold so dear.
In fact, the current Jewish state was founded in large part due to pogroms that targeted people based purely on religion, including, of course, Kristallnacht and the Holocaust.
The recent mosque attack increased tension and stoked fears of another intifada. The first intifada ignited from an Israeli-Palestinian car accident that followed years of growing tensions in the region and resulted in the birth of Hamas as we know it today. The situation in 2009 is strikingly similar to the late 1980s and everyone should fear an escalation of tension due to the potentially deadly consequences.
Criticisms of the settlers are often countered with an excuse that Hamas and other terrorists threaten Israelis with far deadlier attacks, including suicide bombings and rocket strikes.
No action, by any group, can legitimize the rapacious acts of these settlers that often, as they did this weekend, target peaceful groups of people. And yes, it’s still illegitimate even though Hamas does it.
(Remember, not all settlers are “evil.” One group donated Koran’s to the mosque following the attack.)
Photo from Ynet.
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