DOCSLIB.ORG

Book Review: 'My Promised Land' by Ari Shavit

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Book Review: 'My Promised Land' by Ari Shavit Book Review: 'My Promised Land' by Ari Shavit Israel's most influential columnist attempts an accounting of the Zionist soul. By Oren Kessler Nov. 8, 2013 1:18 p.m. ET In the spring of 1897 a steamer carrying a delegation of 21 British Jews left Port Said, Egypt, for Jaffa—the last leg of its journey to the Holy Land. Leading the pack was Herbert Bentwich, an affluent London lawyer and Zionist leader and the great-grandfather of Ari Shavit, a columnist for the Haaretz newspaper and one of Israel's most influential political commentators. In "My Promised Land," his first book in English, Mr. Shavit charts Israel's history partly through the lives of his pioneering forebears: His grandfather, Herbert's son, was a Cambridge-educated pedagogue who helped develop Israel's education system, while his father was a chemist at the eye of Israel's nuclear program. The result is roughly equal parts personal and family memoir, Israeli history, and prophecies for the land's future. It is one of the most nuanced and challenging books written on Israel in years. My Promised Land By Ari Shavit Spiegel & Grau, 445 pages, $28 Enlarge Image A storefront in Tel Aviv, 1948, adorned with portraits of Theodor Herzl. Robert Capa © International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos Each chapter of "My Promised Land" is a portrait of a time and place (Lydda, 1948; the Alon Shvut settlement, 1975; Gaza Beach, 1991). Mr. Shavit writes of the Bentwich delegation's fateful journey, of its members touring their hoped-for homeland in white safari suits and cork hats. "Is this colonialism?" he asks. "If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck." Even so, he goes on, "these pilgrims do not represent Europe. On the contrary. They are Europe's victims." Much of the book is told from the perspective of Mr. Shavit himself, from his childhood in the university town of Rehovot through his service as a paratrooper, his headlong jump into Israel's peace movement and then his partial decampment from it. At the time of the Oslo Accords, Mr. Shavit headed the nonprofit Association for Civil Rights in Israel and served as an unofficial spokesman for the Israeli left. But as he entered his 30s, the author found himself disenchanted with the activists who would give birth to the accords. This wasn't because he had come to support territorial expansion—he continues today to warn of the corrupting influence of the West Bank occupation—but because he deemed the Israeli left dangerously unconcerned by the Palestinians' attachment to terrorism and refusal to accept Israel's legitimacy. The author joined Haaretz as a reporter and columnist in 1995, but a year later, as suicide bombings became a monthly routine, he broke with the leftist consensus by penning columns blasting Oslo as a "fraud" foisted on Israel by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. Today, Mr. Shavit is one of a handful of centrist journalists still standing at a paper that for several years has seemed to compensate for plummeting revenue by embracing a sensationalist, far-left radical chic. Quoted selectively, "My Promised Land" could serve as fodder for those looking both to flatter Israel and to fault it. Throughout the book, Mr. Shavit mulls Zionism's justice, necessity and costs. His conclusions are often of the yes-but variety. Yes, he says, Zionism involved the denial of self-determination to the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. Yet until well after Israel's birth, Palestinian Arabs didn't perceive themselves as a separate nation but rather as a corner of the region's Arab population and the vast Islamic umma. Yes, Israel's War of Independence brought the calamity of exile and statelessness to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, a dismal existence they suffer to this day. And yet the number of Jews expelled from the Arab lands in response to Israel's creation was even greater, and they were absorbed into Israel as the Palestinians could have been in the Arab states. One could go further: Had Palestinian and Arab leaders not launched a war of elimination against Israel after rejecting the 1947 United Nations partition, all of Palestine's Arabs could have remained in their homes. The Jews would have been left with a state roughly half the size of the one they won by war's end. But Mr. Shavit isn't selling the on-the-one-hand-on-the-other equivocation of the self-conscious centrist. Rather, he is earnestly, painfully trying to grapple with the vexing complexities of Israel's past and present. He examines critically early Israel's suppression of the land's Arab history, Jewish Diaspora culture and the Holocaust. None of these fit the script of new, fearless Jews reclaiming their ancient patrimony: "The Israelis of the 1950s bury both the fruit orchards of Palestine and the yeshivas of the shtetl, the absence of seven hundred thousand Palestinian refugees and the nihility of six million murdered Jews." Resource-poor and facing the largest influx of immigrants in modern history—Israel's population doubled during its first three years of existence, from 1948 to 1951—the new state didn't have time to process these traumas. As Mr. Shavit writes: "Denial was a life-or-death imperative for the nine-year-old country into which I was born." This, then, is his book's real power: On an issue so prone to polemic, Mr. Shavit offers candor. And yet like most in Israel's center, Mr. Shavit opposes successive Israeli governments' post-1967 bid to settle the West Bank, not because it killed an otherwise possible chance for peace but because it was bad for Israel's soul and global standing to rule over millions of people without granting them citizenship: "Regarding the occupation, the Left was absolutely right," Mr. Shavit writes. "It realized that occupation was a moral, demographic and political disaster. But regarding peace, the Left was totally wrong. It counted on a peace partner that was not really there." The author also condemns Israel's peace camp for lacking the courage to look honestly at the roots of the so-called Middle East conflict and its prospects for resolution: "There was a tendency to see the settlers and the settlements as the source of evil and to overlook Palestinian positions that were not occupation- based. There was a magic belief that Israel was the supreme power that could end the conflict by ending occupation," he says. "It ignored Arab aspirations and culture. It overlooked the millions of Palestinian refugees whose main concern was not occupation but a wish to return to their lands. It was not based on a factual state of affairs, but on a sentimental state of mind. It was a wish, a belief, a faith." If peace is an illusion, is Israel then destined for indefinite conflict with its neighbors? Mr. Shavit's short, grim answer is: probably yes. If Israel stays in the West Bank—the country pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005—the Jewish state will be diplomatically and morally doomed. But if it retreats, it could face a fanatical, Iran-backed Hamas regime on its eastern border whose missiles would endanger the country's central population hub. "After ending occupation, we'll have to establish a new, firm and legitimate iron wall on our postoccupation borders," he writes. "Facing a regional tide of radical Islam, Israel will have to be an island of enlightenment. Israel will have to be moral, progressive, cohesive, creative and strong." It's hard to disagree: For those of us who deem a solid Jewish majority more valuable than an Israel of biblical proportions, that's the best the country can do. And yet the devil remains in the details: Where exactly will the border run? What about the strategically vital Jordan Valley? What about the Palestinians' "right of return," the status of Jerusalem and a dozen other questions? Mr. Shavit doesn't offer easy answers to these quandaries. He shouldn't be expected to. "My Promised Land" is really the author's attempt at a national heshbon nefesh, or "accounting of the soul," a reckoning of good and bad deeds that Jews are commanded to perform on the High Holidays. Having run his numbers, this son of Zionist pioneers can't help marveling at the success—or "miracle," as he writes—of the Jewish national project. "Zionism's goal," he concludes, "was to transfer a people from one continent to another, to conquer a country and assemble a nation and build a state and revive a language and give hope to a hopeless people. And against all odds, Zionism succeeded. If a Vesuvius-like volcano were to erupt tonight and end our Pompeii, this is what it would petrify: a living people. People that have come from death and were surrounded by death but who nevertheless put up a spectacular spectacle of life." —Mr. Kessler, a former staff writer at Haaretz and correspondent at the Jerusalem Post, is director of the Henry Jackson Society's Center for the New Middle East .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy
    Order Code RL33530 CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy Updated August 4, 2006 Carol Migdalovitz Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy Summary After the first Gulf war, in 1991, a new peace process involved bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. On September 13, 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a Declaration of Principles (DOP), providing for Palestinian empowerment and some territorial control. On October 26, 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein of Jordan signed a peace treaty. Israel and the Palestinians signed an Interim Self-Rule in the West Bank or Oslo II accord on September 28, 1995, which led to the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians and Israelis signed additional incremental accords in 1997, 1998, and 1999. Israeli-Syrian negotiations were intermittent and difficult, and were postponed indefinitely in 2000. On May 24, 2000, Israel unilaterally withdrew from south Lebanon after unsuccessful negotiations. From July 11 to 24, 2000, President Clinton held a summit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Camp David on final status issues, but they did not produce an accord. A Palestinian uprising or intifadah began that September. On February 6, 2001, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel, and rejected steps taken at Camp David and afterwards. The post 9/11 war on terrorism prompted renewed U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel in the Occupied Territories Since 1967
    SUBSCRIBE NOW AND RECEIVE CRISIS AND LEVIATHAN* FREE! “The Independent Review does not accept “The Independent Review is pronouncements of government officials nor the excellent.” conventional wisdom at face value.” —GARY BECKER, Noble Laureate —JOHN R. MACARTHUR, Publisher, Harper’s in Economic Sciences Subscribe to The Independent Review and receive a free book of your choice* such as the 25th Anniversary Edition of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, by Founding Editor Robert Higgs. This quarterly journal, guided by co-editors Christopher J. Coyne, and Michael C. Munger, and Robert M. Whaples offers leading-edge insights on today’s most critical issues in economics, healthcare, education, law, history, political science, philosophy, and sociology. Thought-provoking and educational, The Independent Review is blazing the way toward informed debate! Student? Educator? Journalist? Business or civic leader? Engaged citizen? This journal is for YOU! *Order today for more FREE book options Perfect for students or anyone on the go! The Independent Review is available on mobile devices or tablets: iOS devices, Amazon Kindle Fire, or Android through Magzter. INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE, 100 SWAN WAY, OAKLAND, CA 94621 • 800-927-8733 • [email protected] PROMO CODE IRA1703 The Last Colonialist: Israel in the Occupied Territories since 1967 ✦ RAFAEL REUVENY ith almost prophetic accuracy, Naguib Azoury, a Maronite Ottoman bu- reaucrat turned Arab patriot, wrote in 1905: “Two important phenom- W ena, of the same nature but opposed . are emerging at this moment in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient kingdom of Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • Shavit's Israel: Tragedy Or Triumph?
    Shavit’s Israel: Tragedy or Triumph? This is the first in a series of essays by Gidon D. Remba, which explores different facets of Israel’s predicament through a critical encounter with the work of Ari Shavit. (You may enter Shavit’s name in the upper corner search window for other discussions at this blog of Shavit’s views.) See Mr. Remba’s bio at the bottom of this post: With a heavy heart and a sharp ear, I went recently to hear Ari Shavit, the “centrist” Ha’aretz columnist and celebrated author of My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, when he appeared in New York City at the Other Israel Film Festival. [Click here for a brief report on this event.] Like many others, I had found the book to be lyrically written, a love story and a thriller, an ode to Israel. But I was greatly troubled that nearly all the gushing reviews in the mainstream media had overlooked its gaping flaws.(1) Critical reviews, much needed antidotes, abounded in places like The New York Review of Books, +972 Magazine, Ha’aretz and Dissent, but were nowhere to be found in more widely read publications like The New York Times Book Review, or even the Atlantic and The New Republic. New Yorker editor David Remnick dubbed it “the most extraordinary book” on Israel in decades. Closer to the mark, Noam Sheizaf, writing in +972 Magazine, rightly called it a “conservative manifesto” that “views the conflict with the Palestinians as a zero-sum game that can’t really be solved.” Nathan Thrall marveled in The London Review of Books at how often Shavit has served as a “mouthpiece for [the views of] Netanyahu,” yet in the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Of Benny Morris: Morality in the History of 1948 and the Creation of the Palestinian-Refugee Crisis
    The “Conversion” of Benny Morris: Morality in the History of 1948 and the Creation of the Palestinian-Refugee Crisis JOSIE GRAY The history surrounding the 1948 War and the creation of the Palestinian- refugee crisis continues to be contentious, political, and filled with questions of morality. This is especially true for Benny Morris’s historical work. As an Israeli historian, Morris has made significant contributions to the historiography of 1948, with most of his work focusing on the role that Jewish forces played in the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs in 1948 (something that the Israeli government had denied vehemently). Although celebrated for his historical work, following the collapse of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in the early 2000s Morris publically announced his support for the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 and argued that Jewish forces should have expelled every single Palestinian Arab. This paper discusses how a dual commitment to honest historical study and Zionism allowed Morris to announce his support for the atrocities that his own research had uncovered. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181, which approved the partition of Mandate Palestine, which had been under British rule since 1920. Although Arabs made up seventy-one per cent of the population, the partition plan allotted fifty-six per cent of the territory to a Jewish state with the Palestinian state receiving forty-two per cent.1 The proposed Jewish state would contain 499,000 Jews and 438,000 Arabs—a bare majority—while the proposed Palestinian state would have 818,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews.2 The Jewish leadership accepted this plan; Arab representatives rejected it.
    [Show full text]
  • 'There Is a Clash of Civilisations': an Interview with Benny Morris
    AUTUMN / 2015 ‘There is a clash of civilisations’: An interview with Benny Morris by Gabriel Noah Brahm Historian Benny Morris at his home. Anna Loshkin. In this in-depth interview, Israeli historian Benny Morris speaks with Professor Gabriel Noah Brahm about his work, his critics and his regrets. He also charges Western academics with dishonesty about the Middle East, gives his prognosis for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and outlines his view of Israel’s place in the ‘Clash of Civilisations’. Compiled by the Faculty Action Network Benny Morris hasn’t changed. One of the world’s leading chroniclers of the Arab- Israeli conflict tells the truth as he sees it, based on the facts he discerns as a historian. While some have perceived a dramatic shift from the ‘old’ (more optimistic and liberal) Morris of the Oslo period to the ‘new’ (more realistic/pessimistic) Morris of today, this is something of a myth. He hasn’t changed what he says about the reality of 1948, the Palestinian refugees, or anything else. Rather, he has added, to his knowledge of the history of Israel’s rebirth as a modern nation-state, a painful analysis of more recent history. When Yasser Arafat walked away from Israeli peace offers in 2000 and 2001, a disillusioned Morris started to examine the possibility that the Palestinians weren’t serious about wanting a two-state deal. He has since come to rate more highly the importance of Islamism and jihadism as forces driving Palestinian rejectionism. Moreover, as a firebrand who tends to ‘call a spade a spade’, he is irked by a censorious political correctness that limits what can be talked about honestly — policing thought in line with ‘Western guilt’ over colonialism.
    [Show full text]
  • Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S
    Order Code RL33530 CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy Updated September 21, 2006 Carol Migdalovitz Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy Summary After the first Gulf war, in 1991, a new peace process involved bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon with mixed results. Milestones included the Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Declaration of Principles (DOP) of September 13, 1991, providing for Palestinian empowerment and some territorial control; the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of October 26, 1994, and the Interim Self-Rule in the West Bank or Oslo II accord of September 28, 1995, which led to the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern the West Bank and Gaza. However, Israeli-Syrian negotiations were intermittent and difficult, and postponed indefinitely in 2000. Negotiations with Lebanon also were unsuccessful, leading Israel to withdraw unilaterally from south Lebanon on May 24, 2000. President Clinton held a summit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Camp David on final status issues that July, but they did not produce an accord. A Palestinian uprising or intifadah began in September. On February 6, 2001, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel, and rejected steps taken at Camp David and afterwards. The post 9/11 war on terrorism prompted renewed U.S. focus on a peace process, emphasizing as its goal a democratic Palestinian state as a precondition for achieving peace.
    [Show full text]
  • Background Reading
    Yom Ha’Atzmaut -- Between Redemption and Nakba: Living Within Two Competing Narratives Donniel Hartman Background reading 1. Ari Shavit, "Lydda," My Promised Land On July 11, two 3rd Regiment platoons advance from the conquered village of Daniyal toward the olive orchards separating Ben Shemen from Lydda. Strong machine gun fire from the outskirts of Lydda halts them. In the meantime, Moshe Dayan’s Regiment 89 arrives in Ben Shemen. By the water fountain Dr. Lehmann built for his Arab neighbors, Dayan forms the regiment into an armored column. One behind the other, they stand at the ready: a giant armored vehicle mounted with a cannon, menacing half-tracks, and machine-gun- equipped jeeps. In the late afternoon the column leaves Ben Shemen and speeds into the city of Lydda, firing at all in its way. In forty-seven minutes of blitz, more than a hundred Arab civilians are shot dead— women, children, old people. Regiment 89 loses nine of its men. In the early evening, the two 3rd Regiment platoons are able to penetrate Lydda. Within hours, their soldiers hold key positions in the city center and confine thousands of civilians in the Great Mosque, the small mosque, and the St. George’s cathedral. By evening, Zionism has taken the city of Lydda. The next day, two Jordanian armored vehicles enter the conquered city in error, setting off a new wave of violence. The Jordanian army is miles to the east, and the two vehicles have no military significance, but some of the citizens of Lydda mistakenly believe they are the harbingers of liberation.
    [Show full text]
  • Democratic Norms, Diasporas, and Israel's Law of Return
    Democratic Norms, Diasporas, and Israel’s Law of Return By Alexander Yakobson and Amnon Rubinstein A Jewish and democratic [state]―there can be no such thing. Either it is “Jewish” or it is democratic. Otherwise this is just an attempt to evade the requirements of liberal democracy by using a worn-out gimmick: “Israel is a special case.” Israel can be a democratic state where most of its residents have some awareness and some connection to their Judaism, but any other interpretation serves to discriminate against the rights of the Arab minority.1 Writing in his column in Jerusalem’s local newspaper, Kol Ha’ir, the radical Israeli journalist Haim Baram thus summed up the central contemporary arguments against the democratic legitimacy of the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. Such a definition, Baram and others in Israel and beyond tell us, contradicts the “requirements of democratic liberalism”―a universal imperative that must not be violated, even on the grounds that the Israeli situation is unique. But why does Baram claim that Jewish state contradicts the principles of liberal democracy? Do universal democratic principles require the denial of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination? What is democratic and universal about an approach that accords the Palestinian Arab people the right to an independent state of its own, but declares the Jews ineligible for the same right? How does such an outlook harmonize with the slogan, “two states for two peoples,” or with the fact that, after all, the United Nations’ Partition Decision Resolution did give international normative approval to the creation of a “Jewish state?” The delegitimization of Israel as a Jewish state is not confined to the activists of the radical left or representatives of the Arab minority in Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • Muting the Alarm Over the Israeli-Palestinian Conºict Muting the Alarm Over Jerome Slater the Israeli-Palestinian Conºict the New York Times Versus Haaretz, 2000–06
    Muting the Alarm over the Israeli-Palestinian Conºict Muting the Alarm over Jerome Slater the Israeli-Palestinian Conºict The New York Times versus Haaretz, 2000–06 In 2000 the Israeli- Palestinian negotiations for a two-state settlement ended in failure, and the Palestinian uprising (or intifada) broke out. Then, in early 2001 Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel. In 2006 three events dealt further setbacks to the “peace process”: the Israeli election of Ehud Olmert, the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, and the Lebanon war. Then, the 2007 civil conºict in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah ended with a Hamas victory. As a consequence of these events, the prospect for a two-state solution, necessitating negotiations to create a genuinely viable Palestinian state in Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank, is more elusive than ever. The underlying assumption of this article is that the present situation is di- sastrous not only for Israel and the Palestinians but also for U.S. national inter- ests. There is a wealth of information and critical commentary, much of it by Israelis, on the terrible consequences of Israel’s policies and behavior toward the Palestinians—and not just for the Palestinians but also for Israeli security, society, civil culture, and even the future of Israeli democracy. What is less understood—or even denied—is that U.S. support of Israeli pol- icies is gravely endangering critical U.S. national interests: it exacerbates the expanding threat of Islamic fanaticism; it undermines what remains of Middle Eastern stability and, in particular, threatens the conservative Arab regimes (especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan) with which the United States has de facto alliances; and should radicalism spread, it could threaten U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Looking at Israel Today Ronald Aronson Joseph Chuman Jeffrey L
    HUMANISTIC JUDAISM Volume XLIII 2015, Number 1 Looking at Israel Today Ronald Aronson Joseph Chuman Jeffrey L. Falick Gilbert Feldman Alan Dershowitz Erica Jonlin Marti Keller Wisdom from Wine: Israel and the Diaspora From Our New Rabbis Review of My Promised Land and more Humanistic Judaism is a voice for Jews who value their Jewish identity and who seek an alternative to conventional Judaism. Humanistic Judaism affirms the right of individuals to shape their own lives independent Humanistic Judaism is published twice a year by the of supernatural authority. Society for Humanistic Judaism, a non-profit organi- zation, 28611 West Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334, (248) 478-7610, [email protected], www.shj.org. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the viewpoints or policies of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. Transliterations used in articles reflect the author’s preferences. All material © Copyright 2015 by the Society for Humanistic Judaism. No portion of this work may be reprinted or copied without written permission of the publisher. Subscription Rates: $21.00 per year. Canadian Subscriptions $31.00. Overseas Subscriptions $43.00 per year (U.S. Dollars). No refunds. Sample copies available at single issue price plus postage. Addi- tional copies of a single issue are available from the Society for Humanistic Judaism at the cover price plus postage. Address all inquiries and subscriptions to Humanistic Judaism, 28611 West Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334. Indexed in Index to Jewish Periodicals, American Jewish Yearbook, Encyclopedia of Associations, and Standard Periodical Directory. Manuscripts are welcome and should be sent in care of the Editors, Humanistic Judaism, 28611 West Twelve Mile Road, Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334.
    [Show full text]
  • DRAFT LAND GRAB Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank
    מרכז המידע הישראלי לזכויות האדם בשטחים (ע.ר.) B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories D R A F T LAND GRAB Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank May 2002 Researched and written by Yehezkel Lein in collaboration with the Eyal Weizman - architect Translated by Shaul Vardi and Zvi Shulman רחוב התעשייה 8 (קומה רביעית), ירושלים 93420, טלפון 6735599 (02), פקס 6749111 (02) 8 Hata’asiya St. (4th Floor),Talpiot, Jerusalem 93420, Tel. (02) 6735599, Fax (02) 6749111 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.btselem.org Table of Contents Introduction 2 Chapter One: Policy, Processes and Institutions: Basic Concepts 5 Chapter Two: The Settlements in International Law 20 Chapter Three: The Mechanism Used to Seize Control of Land 31 Chapter Four: The Annexation Policy and Local Government 52 Chapter Five: The Encouragement of Migration to the Settlements 60 Chapter Six: The Planning System 73 Chapter Seven: An Analysis of the Map of the West Bank 80 Chapter Eight: The Ari’el Settlement 102 Conclusions 109 2 Introduction In December 2001, a long article appeared in Ha’aretz under the headline “Five Minutes from Kfar Saba – A Look at the Ari’el Region.”1 The article reviewed the real estate situation in a number of “communities”2 adjacent to the Trans-Samaria Highway in the vicinity of Ari’el. The article included the information that most of the land on which these “communities” were established are “state-owned land,” and that “despite the security problems and the depressed state of the real estate market, the situation in these locales is not as bad as might be expected.” The perspective from which this article was written (the real estate market) and the terminology it employs largely reflect the process of the assimilation of the settlements into the State of Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of Right-Wing Political Cultures in Israel
    University of California Santa Barbara Constraints on Diplomacy: The Rise of Right-Wing Political Cultures in Israel A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Global and International Studies By: Shadi Jafari Committee in charge: Professor Paul Amar, Chair Professor Richard Falk Professor Esther Lezra June 2016 i The thesis of Shadi Jafari is approved. _____________________________________________ Professor Esther Lezra _____________________________________________ Professor Richard Falk _____________________________________________ Professor Paul Amar, Committee Chair June 2016 ii Constraints on Diplomacy: The Rise of Right-Wing Political Cultures in Israel Copyright © 2016 By: Shadi Jafari iii ABSTRACT Constraints on Diplomacy: The Rise of Right-Wing Political Cultures in Israel By Shadi Jafari In recent years, extreme right parties have received considerable electoral support and mounting influence in Israeli politics. This thesis will examine the Oslo Accords of 1993 as the catalyst of the new-radical right in Israel, and the state’s neoliberal economy that has shifted towards the manufacturing and export of advanced weapons and security expertise as the global factors that have shaped the rise of new right-wing political cultures in Israel. The study will then analyze the social factors that have appealed to the Israeli public to vote for parties that espouses radical-right views by exploring the influence of roughly one million Russian immigrants to Israel beginning in the 1990s, and the exploitation of existential fears experienced by most Jews. The study will specifically focus on two case studies: the 2014 war on Gaza, also known as Operation Protective Edge, and the reelection of Benjamin Netanyahu as the crystallization of a new-post peace extreme right-wing culture in Israel.
    [Show full text]