With the crisis over West Bank settlements currently dominating Israeli-Palestinian peace process headlines, less attention has been given to how the settlers will be convinced to relocate in a post-peace scenario. Getting domestic buy-in will be necessary in order for Israel to carry out its obligations under any final peace deal.
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With 500,000 Israelis living in the West Bank (including in East Jerusalem), the task of uprooting the settlements seems well-nigh impossible. But more pragmatic estimates of the actual number of settlers likely to be relocated hovers around 70,000. (The remaining settlements would most likely be annexed to Israel.)
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Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 saw some 8,000 settlers brought back across the Green Line. Most Israelis believe these settlers were neglected, with lack of meaningful employment and proper housing opportunities afforded them. West Bank settlers are necessarily wary of feeling similarly abandoned.
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We can assume that the Israeli government, having learned its lessons, will lay out strong financial incentives for West Bank settlers. But equally important is whether the settlers can envision a meaningful life in pre-1967 Israel. This is especially germane to the many settlers who conceive of their identity as directly connected to the land comprising what they call Judea and Samaria. The government would be well served to start thinking creatively about how to connect with the frontier settler identity on the other side of the Green Line.
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We suggest three ways this can be done.
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Telling the History of Place
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Part of what made the post-1967 settlement project so intoxicating was the historical and biblical significance of the West Bank. Shoring up such symbols within Israel can help ease this transition. The City of David lies outside the Old City walls, and is considered to be the site from which King David ruled -- indeed, it predates the Old City. West Jerusalem boasts many neighborhoods that evoke not only the serenity that some settlers associate with their vicinities in the West Bank, but also dynamic mixed commercial-residential areas.
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Tel Aviv, for its part, is considered the first Hebrew city since the Roman expulsion, and already has a rich intellectual and artistic history. In 2003 UNESCO declared Tel Aviv's Bauhaus-inspired "White City" a World Heritage Site. It has a lively and diverse social scene, and its position on the Mediterranean adds a more Levantine atmosphere to the city.
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Taming the Zionist Frontier
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The West Bank settler ethos echoes that of the Wild West in important ways. Settlers view themselves as carrying out a frontier version of Jewish nationalism, particularly in the outlying settlements. Settlers will need to be shown that there are pioneering-like opportunities on the other side of the Green Line. A likely target area is the Negev Desert: an open, wild space where Judah and Simeon, two of the twelve ancient tribes of Israel, are thought to have resided. The Negev can be viewed as a parallel region to be "tamed."
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A second frontier is less territorial: as a world leader in a number of advanced high technology areas, including biomedical research, communications technology, diamond processing, military equipment, and water conservation, the vibrant and free-wheeling economic sector calls out to the pioneering spirit.
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Leading Public Lives in Private Spaces
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There is also a less lofty aspect to the story. With many settlers commuting to jobs across the Green Line, settler existence resembles the urban-suburban divide.
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Suburban life is known for its emphasis on private space. At the same time, many settlements have become village-like enclaves where settlers find common cause in a siege mentality against a government that may uproot them, and against hostile Palestinian neighbors.
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Settlers can be made to experience similar communal identities in intimate residential communities within the Green Line, including Israel's many kibbutzim and moshavim, as well as the relatively recent gated "communal neighborhoods." For those more inclined to head to the cities, the town squares in the major urban centers need to be the target of focus and investment. These sites are rife for communal engagement against a background of national symbolism.
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Deeply-rooted identities and passionately-held narratives can be stubborn roadblocks on the path to peace. But they can also be wisely harnessed by governments. The settlers' sense of place in the national project needs to be honored in a deliberate strategy of recasting existing symbols. Such a process promises to be more enduring in helping settlers adapt to new roles in pre-1967 Israel.
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Without these domestic efforts -- harder to do than writing a check, but perhaps more important -- the best laid plans are doomed to become buried in the sand.
Our purpose was to only focus on one corner of the puzzle, which is to say that any resolution to the conflict must account for several factors. Some ideas or solutions simply won't work without other things in place also.
How Israel deals with its settlers is as important as how the Palestinian Authority deals with its own internally divisive issues, such as secular vs. religious factions.Yet both are very relevant for any final resolution, since both touch on whether either side can deliver on its commitments.
I’m talking, of course, about the Arab settlements in Israel.
Arab settlements in Israel far outweigh Jewish ones, for the simple fact that while Arabs deny Jews the option to live amongst them, Israelis allow its Arab population to proliferate wherever it pleases, though, to be honest, they’re not exactly being asked anymore. After all, the police doesn’t dare upset these gentle souls of the land, and the traitor-leaders are very busy not looking racist before their foreign masters, by maintaining a stranglehold on the Jewish population.
The Zionist expect to continue playing cowboys and Indians with the Palestinians. The US doesn't recognize Gen. Armstrong Custer as a terrorist, does it? So why should it recognize Israeli soldiers as terrorists? Noooo...remember, only Indians committed massacres!
O Israel, God has punished you before for your wickedness. He made you a people, but he never promised you a state. That was the doing of men! So, again you would place your faith in men. Zionists, who dream of the glorious state of Israel. Little do you realize that they are the same character of men that attempted to exterminate you, except now they have a different target; Palestinians.
Moses will not come down from the mountain this time to educate you, and punish you for your sins. Neither will you know the time or place, but be certain in your faith, that you will be visited at every door, for everyone who has defied the commandments that were given to Israel, that it would sin no more.
The far more important issue is what to do with many thousands of Arabs clamoring for Israel citizenship and trying to avoid living under Palestinian rule.
i agree with the article but the notion of abandoned is really not applicable here, these settlers knew from the start they are getting into an area which is under dispute yet they moved in maybe due to economic reasons or maybe just due to religious inclinations...nevertheless it was a bad move on their end and now it's time for them to rectify...
Such people, it seems, think the conflict should be fought right down to the last Palestinian, and of course, such sentiments are expressed from the saftey of their computer desks.
How you cry as you step on them is just amazing. One would think you yourselves are actually the ones being hurt.
From behind your computer, perhaps its easy for you to dismiss the wars and terrorism. Israelis do not have the same luxury.
Please, save the sanctimony.
Maybe lower your goals and your expectations a bit more.People wont accept the status quo of invasion, permanent occupation and settlement of an armed and violent Israeli settler paramilitary organizations.
Israel is 62 years old. The West Bank has never been part of Israel in that time.
You made the desert bloom, yes but you need water to keep making it bloom or else it goes right back to being a desert.
Again this is Israels problem and should have been thought about each time they were told with the over 200 ignored resolutions. You cant claim Israel is like a depressed homeowner ignoring his mail and then cry about it the day his home is foreclosed on.
What could possibly go wrong?
Who knows. They obviously never thought it through did they.
Why do you feel the need to get so salty about that?
Do you just feel committed to being part of the problem, not part of the solution?
But we all know who's fault it really is right ;-)
"The Land of the Settlers is a five part documentary series created by Chaim Yavin, who was described by the Arab News as "the Israeli version of America’s Walter Cronkite". With a handheld camera, Yavin traveled throughout his homeland of Israel and interviewed a range of Palestinians and Israelis in order to document the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Released in 2005, his series was too controversial to air on Israel's public TV station, Channel 1, despite the fact that he had helped to create the station and served as its lead anchorman. It ran instead on Channel 2, creating a stir for its sympathy towards Palestinians.
This segment deals
http://vimeo.com/13454360
You are the egotistical one to think that it will keep going on. Israel does have borders and pretty soon people are going to start calling for the return to those original borders rather than 67. Everyone is tiring of Israeli arrogance such as you display.