Buying Time: Global Leaders Play the Game As Israeli Settlements Expand
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 6 Jun 2011
Ashley Lackovich-van Gorp – TRANSCEND Media Service
Day after day, Israeli settlement construction continues. Even when officially slowed or halted, unauthorized outposts continue to spring up across the Palestinian territories as the Israeli government endorses consent by largely ignoring the illegal actions. Condemned by the International Court of Justice and the global community at large, settlement expansion threatens the very basic concepts of nation-state establishment. These settlements, then, serve not only to hinder true peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, but they represent an internally calculated, and globally tolerated, tool of Israeli expansion and long-term land acquisition plan.
Time is on the side of the Israelis. In 1970, less than 2,000 Israeli settlers lived on the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem). In 2009, more than 300,000 settlers call Palestinian land on the West Bank their home and now, with resumed government supported construction, their numbers are preparing to take another leap. The Israeli government clearly understands that significant settlement evacuation is a prerequisite for a two-state agreement and thus the best, and quite possibly only, option for peace.
To say that they believe another option is possible simply insults their intelligence: how could a Palestinian nation-state exists with pockets of Israel swelling within its boundaries? Despite this knowledge, settlement construction continues as an interest in peace is feigned through crafted talks and strategic photo shoots with world leaders. This process of appeasement brilliantly serves as a distraction while their population in the Palestinian territories steadily increases. As hospitals, schools, shopping malls, and picturesque western-style homes with gardens and swimming pools are constructed, Israeli occupation begins to resemble normalcy.
Young Israelis, who have grown up with the social construction that Palestinian land is nothing more than a fabrication of the anti-Semitic international community, do not realize that some of the East Jerusalem communities, such as the entire city of Ma’ale Adumim that is located on land acquired during the 1967 Six-Day War, are actually settlements. These settlements look, act and function like any other Israeli town or city and, in many cases, are actually attached to pre-1967 Israeli land in an attempt to increase the appearance of their legitimacy. These young Israelis, then, are more victims of an ideology than deliberate perpetrators of occupation. Just as Aden Abigil, the young former Israeli soldier who posted photos of her smiling self next to blindfolded Palestinian prisoners on Facebook, did not understand why her actions were inappropriate, these young Israelis know nothing more than the narrative that has been hammered into both their conscious and subconscious since birth. The Occupation is a tragedy not only to Palestinian youth, but Israeli youth as well.
This process of land acquisition, settlement and social legitimization shows no signs of being reversed. Global leaders, including US President Obama, continue to accept the appeasement strategy of the Israeli government. He has taken a step in the right direction by calling for an end to settlement construction and not verbally stepping down upon Israeli’s rejection. Yet, these are words and not actions. It has become a well-known fact that Israel, although a developed nation with European-influenced social policies, has received more global aid than any other nation state or political entity since WWII.
For the most part, no conditions are attached to these funds. Human rights violations, military occupation and the fostering of an apartheid state are clearly not reasons to remove—or even restrict—foreign aid to a flourishing nation state. Consequently, no initiative exists for the evacuation of settlements, as neither foreign relationships nor national income is at stake. Thus, the unspoken plan is that the Israeli government will continue to receive foreign money, appease the international community and buy time until expanding settlement activity morphs into established towns that will one day be situated within the official borders of the nation state of Israel. While Obama’s pressure to end settlements is unprecedented in US-Israeli relations, a nonviolent action to demonstrate conviction would send a better message.
As the international community continues to accept the appeasement of Israel, Palestinians continue to live at the mercy of a foreign occupying force whose actions receive a global blessing. These international governments, however, cannot take full blame. As long as the citizens of these consenting nations continue to remain silent and allow their leaders to act out a role determined by political Zionism, we are all to blame for the dismal situation, and even more dismal future, of the people within the land that should be called Palestine.
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Ashley Lackovich-van Gorp is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, a PhD student in Leadership and Change, peace activist and humanitarian worker. She has an MA in inter-ethnic relations with a thesis on Minorities in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. She lived in Jerusalem between 2007-09 working to promote peace among Palestinian youth throughout the West Bank and Gaza.
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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 6 Jun 2011.
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