Scores of settlers settling scores

Burn baby burn. Settlers on horseback torched thousands of trees around Nablus yesterday, after setting Palestinian fields alight and stoning passing vehicles. Israeli occupation forces had urged the group to obey the law and shut down their illegal outpost. Most of the western press just yawned.
However, International Crisis Group warns against underestimating the effect of 280,000 rightwing Jewish settlers grabbing land and inserting themselves inside Biblical Judea and Samaria. If ignored, this burgeoning political and social phenomenon could undermine a sustainable Israeli-Palestinian peace, they say.

Israel is facing arguably unprecedented pressure to halt all settlement activity, led by a new and surprisingly determined U.S. administration. But the settlement issue has been transformed in recent years by shifting domestic dynamics, as national-religious and ultra-orthodox Israelis have gained influence and leverage. Entrenched in many West Bank settlements, they benefit from demographic trends: Israel’s army is increasingly dependent on their manpower and politicians on their votes.

“The religious right has assumed an ever more prominent role in opposing territorial compromise”, says Nicolas Pelham, a Crisis Group Senior Consultant based in Jerusalem. “It is banking on its support within state institutions to discourage the government from taking action and on its own rank-and-file to ensure that every attempt to evict an outpost or destroy a structure, however insignificant, comes at a heavy price”.

The ultra-orthodox and national-religious camps account for the lion’s share of the 37 per cent increase in the settler population in the past six years. Although not a united bloc, their politicians hold over a fifth of Knesset seats, some 40 per cent of the ruling coalition. In Israel proper, their numbers are growing steadily, and they carry weight far in excess of their numbers. They occupy key positions in the military, government and legal and education sectors, as well as the bureaucracy, and are seeking to strengthen their ability to resist future territorial withdrawals by building up their influence within and without state institutions. Their role and concerns need to be understood if the obstacle settlements pose to a two-state solution is to be removed.

An agreed Israeli-Palestinian border would make clear which settlers could remain in place and which could not. Several long-overdue steps should be taken in the interim, however. Legislative enactment of an early evacuation compensation package could help persuade some settlers to leave voluntarily. For those who value their attachment to the land over their attachment to the state, efforts could be made to examine how and under what conditions they might live under Palestinian rule and the extent to which Palestinians might accept them. Foreign actors, the U.S. included, should examine ways of making religious parties feel part of the diplomatic process. A clear offer by the Palestinian leadership to guarantee and protect Jewish access to Jewish holy sites under its control could send religious sectors a positive signal of its vision for post-conflict relations.

At the same time, the government should apply its laws more consistently, whether on settlement and outpost construction in the West Bank or acts of violence and incitement against Palestinians.

“The 2005 disengagement from Gaza went remarkably smoothly, but it would be wrong to assume that what happened in Gaza automatically will be replicated in the West Bank”, explains Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East Program Director. “The differences in numbers, background and militancy of the respective settler populations should serve as a warning of the need to give more attention to this issue as talks with Palestinians proceed”.

Venerable olive trees like this one bore the brunt of the protest. If this is politics as usual, perhaps the actions may pset some green activists.

5 Nablus Stations Silenced & the latest Hurra

Yesterday's army raids on Nablus have provoked international ire. When the IDF rolled into the West Bank and confiscated computers and broadcasting gear from five radio and tv stations, Reporters Without Borders called for restraint, and said there was no justification for this heavy-handedness.

Israel Defence Forces insist they target the media only on the basis of their use for military or strategic purposes and not because of their hostile programme content. (Farfur, the pernicious Mickey Mouse clone on Hamas kiddie tv which recently squeaked out slogans demanding the annhilation of Jews, notwithstanding.)

Raids hit the pro-Hamas TV stations Al-Afaq and Sana TV plus two radio stations linked to the Islamist movement, Jabal Al-Nar and Koran Radio. Television stations Gama TV and Nablus TV were also overrun by soldiers. None of the Palestinian TV stations has so far been able to resume broadcasting.

In light of all the Middle East communications fiascos funded by United States tax dollars, which recently saw live mikes handed to pro-Hizb speakers on Al Hurra tv who exhorted viewers to commit violence against Jews, the Levantine airwaves are pretty hard to fathom.

On Wednesday, a US congressional hearing about the botched $63m outreach programme to moderate Muslims produced some classic lines.
"How does it happen that the terrorists take over?" Representative Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcomittee, demanded. "Is there no adult supervision?"

Er, well.....Joaquin Blaya, on the board of Al Hurra, conceded that the head honchos in the network's chain of command spoke no Arabic and could not understand what was being said in broadcasts.

This all was happening while air strikes inside Gaza blazed and scores of rockets menaced Sderot. Israeli volunteer ambulance crews were rushed to Ashkelon after rumours that longer-range missiles were expected to strike there. The Hamas/Fatah situation is spiralling down.

Teenage Bride nabbed as bomber-to-be

Among yesterday's terror arrests was a teenage bomber-bride from Nablus, who was picked up at dawn with six others in a raid on her West Bank refugee camp. The story of this potential "femme fatale" from Palestine is troubling. She may have been trying to escape a dismal arranged marriage by pretending to be a terrorist. This morose wanna-be martyr could hardly be called feisty or drop-dead gorgeous. From all indications, the girl's preference would be to curl up and die.

Newlywed Najwa Hashash, just 19, despaired of married life with her increasingly feeble bridegroom. The honeymoon was definitely over, because the teenager was required to do the chores of a nurse and orderly along with the housework in cramped quarters. She was desperate to find a way out. Her husband, much older, had little chance of recovering from his debilitating illness according to this article in Ynet. Najwa was arrested yesterday by IDF paratroopers, after rumours circulated during the past three weeks that she planned to strap on an explosive belt and cross the closest checkpoint. Earlier, she'd been detained by the Palestinian Authority and released after questioning. Apparently, they deemed Ms Hashash incapable of anything so hush-hush.

In fact, Najwa's neighbours inside the Balata refugee camp in Nablus suggested that the bride had the blues and spread this malicious gossip herself, hoping to be arrested and jailed as a potential suicide bomber. It was just an escape gambit which would leave her "honor" intact and spare her being murdered if she managed to run away from a bad marriage. But others reckon that a recruiter for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades took advantage of her misery and persuaded Najwa that if she planned to end her life, she might as well take out some Israelis with her. Why not be glorified as a martyr and get a stipend for her family? (Unsurprisingly, the al-Aqsa Brigades deny any contact with her.)

The Israeli army raided West Bank houses at dawn Tuesday and hauled Najwa in along with two dozen other terror suspects in an ironic twist to Palestine's annual Prisoner Day. They'd released 500 inmates in a good will gesture the previous afternoon, although at least 7600 more-- including 362 children and 82 women-- still are in lockup inside Israel. About ten per cent are held in protective custody indefinitely, without charges against them.

The IDF is not expected to be lenient with Najwa, and there is little hope that she'll be tried quickly. They say Palestinian women are increasingly taking an active part in the conflict, including kidnaps and stabbings. Motives don't really matter. Two of five suicide bombers last year were female, and one was a grandmother. IDF and Shin Bet forces recently arrested 19 Palestinian women suspected of terror activities against Israel. Ten of these women were allegedly affiliated with Fatah and the remainder with Islamic Jihad. Violent female militants are not the only threat. Women tend to serve as messengers, and frequently carry cash for militant groups. So did Najwa accomplish her plan by getting arrested? Did the IDF thwart a deadly attack or enable an adolescent scheme to replace the lonely prison of marriage with actual jail time? Was this girl ever an actual threat?

('Suicide Barbie' blonde bombshell poster is by the conceptual artist Simon Tyszk.)