War Handwavium

In Israel’s elections yesterday, the far right Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman won 15 seats. Lieberman is an extremist who lives in a Jewish settlement the West Bank. His critics say he campaigns on racism and fascism. He has called for Israel to redraw its borders to expand Israel into Arab lands. He has called Arabs living in Israel a “fifth column” of Israel’s enemies and demanded that they should take “loyalty oaths” and those who refuse should be stripped of their citizenship. Their “crime” is that they opposed Israel’s recent war against Gaza that killed hundreds of civilians.

It is depressing that this needs to be pointed out, but in a “Democracy”, people are allowed disagree. Actually, they are supposed to disagree, or at the very least expected to disagree. What Lieberman is doing is supressing the voices of the people who disagree with him. At which point you no longer have a Democracy. You have fascism, a single-party state. No criticism is allowed. No alternative views are allowed. No dissenting views are allowed. The fact that Lieberman is doing this within the Israeli government makes it no less fascist.

Lieberman is on par with Americans during WW2 putting Americans of Japanese decent into “internment” camps. Or more recently, Lieberman would be on par with George W. Bush in March of 2003 telling Americans who oppose his invasion of Iraq that you’re either with us or against us.

As for his accusations of “fifth columns” in Israel, I must reluctantly agree that there may be some truth to the charge. The column, however, is composed of Jews coming out of Israel who build settlements on Palestinian land, acting as a slow invader of Palestinian territory.  The stated purpose of these settlers is clear. They are taking land from Palestinians. The reasons they give boil down to either religious reasons (God promised this land to the Jews) or one of two political reason, either they want to claim as much land for Israel as possible before the Palestinian state is formed, or they want to claim so much land for Israel that a Palestinian state becomes impossible.

There are currently 250,000 Jews living in illegal settlements on Palestinian lands.

In January 2009, the Israeli government attempted to bury a report by their own military on Jewish settlements because the facts were so damning.  30 settlements were built on land privately owned by Palestinians. 75% of the construction in settlements were done without permits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7861076.stm

Jewish settlements in Palesetinian land accounts for about 400,000 dunums of land area. Or about 400,000,000 square meters. or about 400 square kilometers.

http://asp.fmep.org/app/settlement/ShowSettlementTablePage.aspx

There is a fifth column at work. And they are Jewish Settlers slowly invading Palestinian land. Lieberman himself lives on a settlement in teh West Bank.

Israel is using settlers are the fifth column, the private, unflagged, unofficial army to quietly invade and conquer Palestinian lands and expand the borders of Israel. Were the Israeli military to invade these lands, it would be immediately condemned internationally. So instead, Israel turns a blind eye to its people doing the invading for them.

The relationship between the Israeli government and Jewish Settlers invading Palestinian land is reminiscient of white racist politicians in the American South who turn a blind eye to the violence committed by private groups like the Klu Klux Klan. Except in this case, Lieberman as an Israeli politician who is also a settler in Palestinian land would turn out to be a governor of Alabama who also happens to be a member of the KKK.