Israel’s military starts drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews – but the battle over serving ‘the army of God’ vs. the army of the state isn’t over, and points to key questions for the country’s future.
Tbf most of them have lived there for many generations, it's not as if they consciously chose to move there just to spite the previous residents. But I do agree they shouldn't be treated specially for their religious beliefs, and that no one should be forcefully crafted even.
The vast majority of the settlements have been built either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land.
More than 700,000 settlers – 10 percent of Israel’s nearly 7 million population – now live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts dotting the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
A settlement is authorised by the Israeli government while an outpost is built without government authorisation. Outposts can range from a small shanty of a few people to a community of up to 400 people.
Some of the settlers move to the occupied territories for religious reasons while others are drawn by a relatively lower cost of living and financial incentives offered by the government. Ultraorthodox Jews form one-third of all settlers.
They are absolutely pushing Palestinians out to settle their land. The government actually has programs incentivizing living in a settlement, making it cheaper and better served than living in the normal borders of Israel. Unless you're Palestinian of course. Then your home gets surrounded by barbed wire and you have to go through armed checkpoints to go anywhere, work, groceries, school, literally anywhere.
Except that's literally not at all what happened. There was never any sovereign nation called Palestine prior to the end of the British Mandate of Palestine. Before that it was ruled by the Ottomans. And the name Palestine was originally given to the region by the Romans when they ruled the region to spite the Jews by naming their promised land and ancestral homeland after their historical enemies, the Phillistines and the name just stuck.
During all of those periods both Arabs and Jews lived in that region. When the British Mandate of Palestine ended there was a war between the Jews and the Arabs and the Jews won as they did time and time again despite the Arabs being the aggressors the vast majority of the time. This idea that a nation called Palestine existed prior to the end of the British Mandate or that there's an ethnicity of people called Palestinians that aren't just garden variety Arabs is completely false and used as propaganda. The land these people claim as theirs never belonged to them nor did they ever rule it before and they lost all the wars they started to attempt to claim it.
The Arabs don't get to fuck around and find out and then play the victims.
The reports from the British colonial forces are clear. The Isrealis pushed the British out and attacked the Palestinians.
And you don't get to occupy someone for 70 years, refuse them rights, refuse to let them have a state, or properly annex them, and then be surprised they want to kill you. This is like Hitler calling the Warsaw Ghetto Jews the violent ones.
Netanyahu's going to need a much bigger military for whoever he goes to war with next. Because they'll have an actual trained military force to go up against.
Let's see Israel do it without an endless supply of American shells and bullets. They publicly said they couldn't do Gaza without it. Let's try Syria, or Iran. Should go well right?
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