‘You are the Zionist pioneers’ – centrist Israeli minister hails messianic settlers
Israeli settlers from Yitzhar throw stones during clashes with Palestinians from the village of Asira al-Qibiliya on 19 May 2012
Jonathan Ofir writes in Mondoweiss:
Israel’s long-running settlement enterprise is about creating “facts on the ground”. The facts appear typically as “outposts” built by true believers that lack intial authorization, either on land seized by the state’s military, or simply on private Palestinian land. The question is then how to retroactively legalize the theft and how to frame it. One tends to think that this enterprise is mostly the project of the right-wing, but historically it has been encompassed by both the right and the left, in varying shades of overtness.
This week, a centrist minister dropped an overt bomb.
On Sunday, Israeli Diaspora Minister Omer Yankelevich from Benny Gantz’s Blue-White party hailed the colonialist settlers at a “Settlement Forum.” In doing so, she confirmed a move by Defense Minister Gantz and his party colleague Michael Biton (Minister of Strategic Affairs) to retroactively legalize 1,700 settler housing units, which even by Israel’s lenient laws (which defy international law) are considered illegal.
Yankelevitch called for Jewish supremacist “unity” over the settlements, saying that “it’s time to put an end to the discourse of splitting and of hate towards the settlers”. Journalist Neri Zilber said in sharing a video of her speech, that the statement was a betrayal. “Blue-White were voted in on backs of million+ center-left votes”.