Palestinians in the West Bank say they are being driven from their homes by a campaign of terror waged by armed civilians determined to take their land
The girls, aged 14 to 16, have come for settler training to learn how to occupy Palestinian land — breaking international law. “God promised us this land and told us if you don’t take it, bad people will try and take it and you will have a war,” says Emuna Billa, 19, one of the camp supervisors. “Why do we have a war in Gaza? Because we don’t take Gaza.”
Their guru is Daniella Weiss, a 79-year-old grandmother in a long skirt and patterned headscarf. Founder of the Nachala or Homeland movement, she has been setting up illegal settlements for 49 years and was recently put under international sanctions. “You will be the new emissaries,” she tells the 50 or so girls at the camp. “I call it redeeming, not settling and this is our duty.”
She unfurls a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories dotted with vivid pink house symbols to represent existing and proposed Jewish settlements. Not only are these all across the West Bank, but also in Gaza. Already 674 people have signed up for beachside plots there, she tells me, and “many more want to join”. When someone asks her about settling Lebanon she smiles and says, “Yes, there too”.
“God promised us this land and told us if you don’t take it, bad people will try and take it
And that attitude right there is why there will most likely never be peace in the region.
There are hard-line factions on both sides of the conflict who are convinced that their religion grants them a god-given right to exclusive occupation of the same piece of dirt.
I'm not surprised. That's what Israeli settlers are doing for decades, not just since October.
Tell me how people should not get radicalized, when your home and existence and that of your family is constantly threatened.
I'm not condoning the actions of Hamas, they are brutal and wrong. But Israel created that beast themselves and left Palestinians with no other options.
If you want a more human focused instead of politics I would recommend to read Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation
Jewish author Michael Chabon and Israeli born author Ayelet Waldman asked writers, journalists, authors of both sides and not involved at all, to visit the occupied territories and write an essay about their expierience. It shows a heartbreakingly personal point of view of the situation before the current war.
All settlers are terrorists. There are over 750k people living in the occupied territories. They need to gtfo asap. Their claims hold no water and there is absolutely no legal foundation to creating little settler colonies on another people's land. I'm talking about the West Bank and the other occupied territories here, not Israel proper.
Wow Israel really thinks the world will go like "welp it is now a conflict between civilians so the Israeli government can't be blamed". I bet they are praying that locals organise a defense against these invader settlers so that they can pretend like they have a good excuse to send troops.
It's not clear to me that the fundamental ideals of a liberal democracy are compatible with a state where one race or religion is held above all others; or with a state where some races or religions are considered less equal.
Arguably the US is still working on recognizing this idealism and didn't fully reckon with it until the 1960s.
There was an article about her a few months ago, and I wanted to again point out how Hamas's terrorist mickey mouse actually had more sound logic than this insane woman.
Farfour's grandfather explains to Farfour the history of the land. Tel Aviv, he explains, is the Jewish name for the land that was originally called Tel Al-Rabi and the Jews renamed it after occupying it in 1948. Farfour's grandfather gives Farfour the key and documents to the land and then he dies. Farfour exclaims "Grandpa entrusted me with this great trust but I don't know how to liberate this land from the filth of the criminal plundering Jews who killed my Grandpa and everybody." Farfour is then taken to an interrogation where he is "beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land" because Farfour had called him a "despicable terrorist." The episode has what seems to be an editorial mistake as a brief flash of a "Farfour in prison" sign is shown immediately prior to Saraa explaining that "Farfour was martyred while defending his land, the land of his fathers and forefathers. He was martyred at the hand of the criminals, the murderers, the murderers of innocent children who killed Iman Hijo, Muhammad Al-Duro, and many others."
"No body follows the old testament."
"Jesus died and filled the prophecy, so the old testament doesn't apply."
"But Jesus taught love and forgiveness. That's what the old testament was for."
I have heard everything growing up when asked about old testament stories. The brutality, supported raping and murdering of those that don't agree.
Then you have Christians. For their teachings to be true, they HAVE to support Israel. If not, the their religion is false.
You see this vicious cycle. See why religion is dangerous and the bases for all wars. Someone change my mind? Maybe I'm the crazy one.