Settlers or Squatters

They call them settlers. Those persons being dragged out of their Gaza homes and on to our TV screens. Settlers is a name with a heroic cast. It evokes the word pioneer. Noble ground breaking. Community building. That kind of stuff.

But what if the same people were called squatters? Not so noble. Squatters hints of persons being where they ought not to be, of occupying a place which doesn't belong to them. If the settlers were called squatters, their tearful ejection might be seen in a different light.

The settler-squatters believe the land they have been thrown off of is theirs. God gave it to them. They have got an ancient book which gives them title, so when they moved in some thirty years ago, or as they might say, took it back, they did so by an act of divine eminent domain. Who can argue with that?

The evictees are given hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation; they are lodged free and helped to replant themselves in dozens of ways. When Palestinians are evicted they are not carefully removed from their homes by unarmed, remorseful police. They are evicted with bulldozers and if the family happens to be in the building at the time, well, tough tiddy.

Why were the settler-squatters evicted in defiance of God's plan? As a step toward a peaceful accord? Or because protecting the squatter villages was, from a military point of view, a pain in the neck?

Whichever answer is correct, the Gaza Palestinians still cannot leave their sandbox without Israeli permission. Entrance and exit by air, sea and land is controlled by their masters.

That's OK. Yes, the Palestinians are locked up on their arid piece of real estate. Yes, they have no economy. Yes, they have no water. No weapons except a few home made pop guns, but they can fight. They can procreate. There are already 1.3 million and counting. With them it isn't make love, not war. It's make war by making love.