This article completely misses the mark. So does the Trump plan.
To most of the people in the region, this is entirely a theological dispute about a single religious shrine, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Israelis are willing to share it, but the Arabs are not.
Steps to peace:
1) Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, with safeguards for Muslim holy sites.
2) Egypt takes over Gaza, and incorporates it as a demilitarized Egyptian province.
3) Jordan takes over the West Bank in several stages, incorporates it as a demilitarized Jordanian province, and protects the rights of Israelis who wish to remain as residents.
No separate Palestinian state is warranted.
5
@AKJersey The need for a Palestinian state is based upon the misunderstood human animal instinct which drives for the total control of a homeland in order to survive. Sadly, the Israelis are no different than the Arabs and it will take another few thousand years to even think that this earth will require all of us to somehow accept each other in order to survive the damages we, as a basic animal, have already caused and will continue to do so.
2
Where has Israeli morality gone? They now see nothing wrong in voting for a person under criminal investigation, both nationally and internationally. They see nothing wrong in Netanyahu's associations with immoral persons such as Donald Trump and MBS in Saudi Arabia.
10
Approval of the settlements and the settlement policy by Trump, Kushner, and Greenblatt should be viewed by Israelis as a curse. One outlaw approving the activity of another outlaw means little to anyone in the law abiding community, whether it be in the USA or around the world. Endorsement by a group of criminals confirms the illegality.
10
“A president of the United States came along and said the people of Israel have the right to be here.”
How sad that there are those in Israel that treat Trump's words and actions as if they were "delivered from the mount...." That kind of belief in such an individual reeks of desperation... and possibly the knowledge (if the "here" the person was referring to was the illegal settlements) that they are conniving with and trusting merely a fellow thief.
9
Where you say: ".......the biblical promise and legitimacy of the settlements in the occupied West Bank.......", of course readers should understand that this is man-made fiction built on self-interested writings in the circumstances thousands of years ago and not an incontestable legal basis for determining the legitimacy of any particular land claims in the current era.
11
@Mark Regardless of whether or not you believe what it says in the Hebrew bible, Hebrews lived in that part of the land long, long before Muslims even existed.
2
@jackie
Your point of view on the pre-eminent place of historical priority suggests that we should be quite willing to return Manhattan island and much of the USA to Native Americans . After all, their lands were wrested from the and they were oppressed by the settlers who forcibly annexed them. Many of their sacred sites are now industrial parks or real estate used for oil rigs. We should be willing to employ historical and even biblical claims evenhandedly to all lands in the world. Israel has a clear right to exist and have sovereignty over thematic it has built, but the Palestinians have a clear right to share sovereignty over land of their forebears . Both things must be accounted for in any solution of this crisis.
6
@Philly I absolutely agree with you about returning lands to the indigenous people. I live in upstate NY, very close to a large reservation. I am aware every day that I, too, am living on occupied land. However, the Palestinians who live in the West Bank are technically Jordanian since Jordan had sovereignty over it before the Jews reclaimed it. Jordan should absorb them all and give them Jordanian citizenship. Problem solved.
4
The “president” of stolen land is telling Israeli’s a world away that they have the Divine right to “their” land... the level of intellectual dishonesty among these two groups troubles the soul of the truly moral.
12
This is not an American recognition of a Zionist goal. It is
an atheist Trump wish to appease his Evangelical supporters while supporting Netanyahu, other Khazars, and Putin.
16
The Israelis are playing with fire. They used to have strong bipartisan support from USA, and also support from Germany, Canada, UK.. Now their only support is from US Republicans, with tepid support from US Democrats and other countries. This is Bibi's big achievement, the alienation of most allies. Trump is working on the same thing with US allies.
16
Equal Justice- Illegally built settlements and their occupants should be removed, just like the Palestinians were illegally removed before.
13
How long before the whole area is under water.
2
The proposed map of the Palestinian territories looked like the gerrymander of a gerrymander; one misstep left or right and you're in the enemy's jurisdiction. Cruel, absurd and unworkable, in other words, Trumpian.
14
For the life of me, I do not understand why a population would want a criminal to be their leader.
10
Well,the U.S. has one too. And will likely be re-elected.
6
Giving the land to Israel is only right if we give the land America took from to the native Americans we stole the land from.
How can Israel accept aid from a country that displaced native Americans the same way Israelis were displaced in their history? Seems hypocritical.
8
I can guess what the "international consensus" would be if Israel had *lost* its war of Independence rather than winning a decisive victory.
2
Why aren't these people happy?
These people are never happy. They will never be satisfied with whatever they get. They will always want more.
4
I was around after WWII. I remember that the main impetus for the founding of Israel was to provide a homeland for Jews. My father, during and right after WWII, strongly supported an effort to buy 3 or 4 huge sheep ranches in western Australia as a homeland for the Jews. The area involved was greater than that of Palestine and the terrain was not that different. It was also almost entirely empty of people. My father could see only trouble for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. I believe the idea failed because of opposition from Jewish religious fanatics and the Australian government.
After the failure, my father supported the state of Israel. I vividly remembered he and my uncle struggling with a refrigerator to send to cousin Max (Max Savidor for whom the main rail station in Tel Aviv is named) in Israel. It could be said that my father was anti-Zionist, but to say he was an anti-semite is absurd. And, you know, he was right about the Australian purchase.
6
The settlers better pray for a Trump victory. Bernie is not going to be open to their nonsense.
7
As Jewish colonists occupy Palestine, it has been obvious for years that two states are impossible; one look at a map of the settlements and the 'Swiss Cheese' effect has been in place for many years. One nation, set aside religious ideology, and embrace democracy.
7
Assigning a peace negotiation to a coddled real estate neophyte won't advance the process one iota.
5
"..what many of the settlers object to is that the plan leaves Yitzhar and 14 other isolated settlements...tethered to Israel by narrow arteries."
These are the kind of settlements Israel should be ready to give up in a well thought out peace plan, so Palestinians can have some semblance of contiguous land area.
11
If groups of people from Mexico established settlements in the southwestern states on the basis that the former Spanish Empire territory was their ancestral homeland, would Trump support them?
13
@Marie
Or, make the claim, as most folks from Mexico can, that the Southwest was home to first indigenous peoples even before the Spanish arrived.
3
An honest discussion demands calling things as they really stand. These are not settlements and these are not settlers. Rather colonies and neo-colonialists.
8
The world should do as my mother, the former Marine would do. If my brother and I were fighting over a toy, she didn't come in and try to get us to use our words or resolve it. Oh, no. She would stomp in, grab the toy, break it up and say, "There, now neither one of you has a toy. Are you happy now?" We learned very quickly how to get along.
4
My guess is that the settlers will have their way eventually because Israel, however slowly, always expands its territory and borders. What does Israel have to bump into to stop doing that?
1
@A Hammick
Israel has to bump into an asymmetric insurgency conducted by the folks who have nothing left to lose.
This is so sad.
I feel for the Palestinians who are being denied their land and independence.
I feel for the Settlers, who have lost loved ones to senseless acts of terror, and who were lured by the promise of cheap land in what was part of “biblical Israel” 2000 years ago, but not recognized as part of Israel today.
This situation is the result of intransigence in the leadership on both sides going back decades. If only the British had implemented their mandate pre-1948 and divided the country, instead of relinquishing their responsibility and passing the problem off to the spineless United Nations.
Someday leaders on both sides will finally sit down and compromise (like Begin and Sadat) but the cost will be high, and only getting higher as the population of Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank just keeps increasing.
8
With this “peace” plan, once again, Trump is looking out for his own personal interests.
He hoped it would boost Netanyahu’s chances and winning so he would have a financial ally in Israel.
4
What I see in the map is the logic of a real estate speculator. Seed your investments inside the area you want to "gentrify" and make them more desirable. Then let the other speculators buy and develop around you. Rinse and repeat.
2
Trump's "Peace Plan" is like so many of his ideas. It sounds good until you actually analyze it. For an plan to be good it has to have a chance to work. This so-called "Peace Plan" has zero chance of working.
5
@alan No peace plan has any chance to work. On Dec. 2, 1947, just days after the UN General Assembly passed a resolution to partition historic Palestine into Jewish and Arab-ruled sections, the Ulama or chief scholars of Sunni Islam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo– the leading university of the Arab World– issued a fatwa calling on the world’s Muslims to launch a Jihad to destroy the incipient Jewish state. It was reiterated by the Ulama, in April 1948, days before the Egyptian Army and three other Arab armies attacked Palestine, giving the campaign a “religious imprimatur.” The fatwa was reissued later that year.
“It was clear the Arabs had lost the war,” Morris said, but reissuing the Fatwa signaled it was meant “to stand for future years, for future generations, for whatever bout there will be against the Jews.”
As noted in his book and repeated at the conference, Matiel Mighannam, a Lebanese Christian woman who headed the Arab Women’s Organization in Palestine, affiliated with the Arab High Command, told an interviewer: “The UN decision has united all Arabs as they have never been united before, not even against the Crusaders.” She added that a Jewish state had no chance to survive and “All the Jews will eventually be massacred.”
As long as most Palestinians are devout Muslims (85% of Palestinian Muslims want sharia law.) and as long as the Jewish State controls even one square inch of land, peace is impossible.
2
I thought I was pretty well aware of modern history; but recently I read a nonfiction book called "The Lemon Tree" about Israeli-Palestinian since 1948. I knew nothing. I had never heard that Palestinians were driven off their land in the "Catastrophe" and that Israeli and American children believed they had left their homes and belongings voluntarily. I didn't know the history of terrorism on both sides. I didn't know the people living in the region weren't part of the negotiations. I didn't know the erosion of what rights the Palestinians had had, the gradual and insidious establishment of the "settlements." That Israel started the 6-day War with air attacks. There are too many wrongs, too much suffering, too much blame all around. I am saddened by my own ignorance, and am reading more to learn what may eventually approximate the whole truth. How can there be peace without truth? How can there ever be peace without justice? without reconciliation? without forgiveness?
11
A fair number of Americans, either frustrated with our largely two-party system or with our currently divided government, have been advocating for a parliamentary system. Let Israel, Italy, France under the Fourth Republic, and even post-Brexit Great Britain be a warning of the real problems that a parliamentary system can produce.
4
This is good insight. The U.S. moved our embassy to Jerusalem, then helped craft and support a plan to formally take more land in the area. The message from many in Israel? "It's not enough". I suspect that will be the answer every time, no matter the gains or the cost of those gains.
6
@JP Jews accepted the 1937 Peel Partition Plan, the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the Clinton Parameters & Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented a 2-state peace plan. All of these were 2-state solutions. But it's never enough for racist Palestinians who want it all. They shout "From the River to the Sea!"
1
Negotiations require multilateral approaches. There were no Palestinians at the table for the Kushner Plan. It won't work without buy-in. It would be great if the settlers and Palestinians got along. They typically don't and Israel has tried to erase the possibility of a two state solution.
19
The problem with Trump’s support for Israel is that, like everything he does, it is unilateral. Because Trump is unable to attract allies for his ideas, no other country supports Trump’s moves. When Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem, no other significant country moved their embassy. When he recognized the Golan as Israeli, no one joined him. Now when he has presented the “Deal of the Century” no other country has supported it. Out of fear of Trump, other countries have said that they will “study it.” So here we have more of the same: Trump unilaterally suggests a “not really a state” for the Palestinians, but Israeli sovereignty for any place where Israelis live, and then, surprise, no one but Trump really supports the idea.
69
If this was all about maps and borders and security and fairness a solution would have been reached decades ago. It's all about religion and that will, unfortunately, make reaching a peace accord a fantasy. When the far right and the far left control the narrative and people walk through there neighborhood with a bible as a guide to the land a solution is very far off. No one sees the humanity of the other person only that they are an other. It is so sad that these childish myths dictate things for the majority. Don't fret though, a solution is almost certainly less than a hundred years away.
46
One can now fully appreciate Barack Obama's parting shot against what has become the Friedman/Kushner/Netanyahu scheme to annex more Palestinian lands: a formal U.N. Security Council resolution, passed December 23, 2016. It was the first U.N. resolution on the issue in 40 years and the last word of the international community on the subject of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands.
The Security Council resolution said the settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem were illegal and that Israel must cease settlement activity. In the eyes of the world, that land belongs to Palestine.
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@DMon707 Jews have lived there for thousands of years so why is it only for Muslims & Christians? Why should we pay attention to the UN when the UN is so prejudiced against Israel. For example, the UN criticized only one country for its treatment of women. It was not Saudi Arabia where women were not allowed to drive. It was not Egypt or Iraq or Yemen where girls suffer from female genital mutilation. It was not Palestine or Jordan or Iran where women are subjected to honor killings. It was Israel – a country that has had a female prime minister & female fighter pilots.
The 10 worst countries for human rights are: Syria, Sudan, DR Congo, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Yemen & Nigeria. So why are there more UN Resolutions against Israel, a liberal democracy, than against the 10 worst countries combined?
There is no boycott of China even though China invaded Tibet & transferred millions of Chinese settlers into Tibet.
There is no boycott of Turkey even though Turkey occupies part of Cyprus and Turkish settlers have moved into occupied Cyprus.
There is no boycott of Morocco which occupies part of Western Sahara.
Unlike China, Turkey and Morocco, the Israel's occupation began because Israel was attacked. Also, unlike China, Turkey and Morocco, Israel offered to end the occupation if Palestinians would sign a peace treaty.
3
I agree that Israeli settlements surrounded by a Palestinian state could be problematic, for the Israelis and for the Palestinians. Radicalization and justified resentment could cause increased acts, although isolated, against settlers. Such acts of violence could give reason for the Israelis to send police and troops into troublesome areas of the proposed Palestinian state to occupy them until trouble ceased. Such occupation would only bring more resentment and perhaps more violent protest. A terrible cycle.
In all peace negotiations and plans, Israeli constant map re-drawing of lands to give them prime access to water and prime land
13
“A president of the United States came along and said the people of Israel have the right to be here.”
Trump didn't come down from a mountain. He didn't descend from heaven as "the Chosen One". He didn't part the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea before he proclaimed the people of Israel had a right to be there. Most likely Trump came off of his golf course at Mar-A-Lago to make his grand pronouncement.
What are rights and where does any right originate? Sorry, but all rights are human constructs. There is no outside agency or agent that confirms a right on anyone. At the end of the day, people stand face to face with each other and somehow must fight it out or strike a bargain that generally satisfies each party. There is no time limit, just the will to negotiate (or not).
35
That’s an un-American sort of view! I prefer to believe that we are naturally endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
1
@Dan this would apply then to Obama , who also didn't come down from a mountain ,despite his followers messiahfication of him. His parting shots were equally ineffective and non-binding.
As the arabs repeatedly decided to wait for a better deal, the outcome here will be status quo, with nothing gained for the arabs other than further misery.
Some people won’t vote for criminal annexation of lands. Heartening.
62
The US doesn’t support the Israeli settlements in occupied territory. Personally, I hope that when Trump leaves office the next President helps Israel dismantle and remove the settlements.
72
@Don Why would that happen ?
The US has "tolerated" the settlements and will continue to do so. Israelis generally support them.
As well thought out as all of Trump's other bankrupt companies. When will people learn.
44
Mr. Netanyahu isn't benefiting from the Trump plan in election polls for reasons that have nothing to do with the West Bank or Israel's relations with the Palestinians. Simply put, a sizable portion of the Israeli electorate, myself definitely included, despises Netanyahu because of the way he does his job, as well as his living high off the hog at taxpayer expense while doing so --not to mention that slight matter of his being under indictment.
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@Larry
Alas, a similar scenario has worked out well for Trump.
24
@Larry
Has he been formally indicted, or is the AG still muddling about?
9
@omartraore Trump is an impeached president.
The first and primary obstacle to peace is the absurd culturally ingrained notion that any part of the region belongs to anyone because God gave it to them. It just didn't happen. Get over it and there is a chance that there can be a resolution.
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@Bill
When religion, ethnicity, and shared history are wound up so tightly it is extremely difficult to resolve an issue as complex as this.
Israel holds itself up as an example to the world in the areas of democracy and economic progress. Present yourself as having high standards and people will expect you to uphold them.
Eventually the concept of limiting a country to one religion and ethnicity is not sustainable. Eventually you run out of true democracy. As time goes on, the two state solution will morph into a single state of Arabs and Jews. It will take some time and will not be pretty, but I believe it will happen.
1
At some point there will be an American President who will stand up for justice and say the US won’t accept a situation with disconnected “Bantustans” designed to leave Palestinians as essentially stateless in their own country, nor support a “democracy” that leaves out what will soon be a majority of the population in the land from the Med to the borders with Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. We have always eventually supported democracy, and sooner or later, we will have a President saying if Israel doesn’t want a fair and equitable Two-State Solution, in accordance with UN Resolutions, then that leaves a Single State Solution with democracy and the right to vote for all residing there. As has already been stated elsewhere, you need to be careful what you ask for!
88
@Ron Adam , A fair and just American president is a fantasy.
Any elected president owe much to
his donors, most of them are friends of Israel. Kurds were also promised homeland, they are still waiting. They fought ISIS as American allies to be abandoned by Mr. Trump.
2
Trump and Netanyahu are playing with fire.
If they keep up all the unethical, illegal, immoral things they are doing in the next conflict and it surely will come, don't look for moral support from the west like they had in most all other previous conflict against the Arabs.
60
This sad story recounts another chapter in the collapse of ethical Judaism in Israel. Perhaps it will survive in the U.S., where it has been a force for social improvement.
97
Perhaps there is indeed a way to forecast a hopeful outcome to this intractable struggle (both in its political and religious elements). Perhaps the “return to ethical Judaism” in Israel that you presage in this comment might in fact promise better solutions for all of us: Maybe that is the true gift of Modern Israel to the world. Especially if more and more Israelis tire of the bluster and hypocrisy of this disheartening (and historically recent) union between the ultra-right and the increasingly irreligious Likud leadership there. Perhaps more Americans of both passionate and quiet faith will themselves see the good of this movement and will lean-in in the years ahead toward a resurgence of “ethical Judeo-Christianity” in American communities and houses of worship as well. The signs are there out in our communities that this trend is taking root. There is indeed a slowly but surely growing movement here too to reject the blatant hypocrisy of constant realpolitik from our pulpits and to also reject the toxic partnership that American religious leaders have forged with the forces of greed and cynicism. Maybe, slowly, more and more Americans will seek out churches and spiritual manna that fosters expressions of our various faiths in and out of church that advocate just solutions to our secular woes, and builds congregations that — instead of self-satisfaction — look actively to share both the burdens and gifts of faith through kindness, selflessness and dogged integrity.
1
Why didn’t he go the whole Way and just give the whole thing to the settlers? They are not going to be happy unless they get all of the land of these ... whatever. And they could be employed, the Palestinians, say, during the harvest season, or doing housework. They should be thankful for Donald Trump. He sure has a great heart looking out for the little guy!
20
So, only the settlers have rights. That their communities are in violation of international law is irrelevant since God gave them this land. They expect God to protect them in the event of a major uprising. How can anyone Jewish lean on that hope, after the Holocaust.
86
I cannot believe Israel is accepting a settlement plan issued by our ignorant and IMO formed. “president” and that many people are supporting it.
Everything and everyone that he encounters gets ruined, tarnished or destroyed. To act like his foreign policy speaks for the US is to be mistaken. Warning to our friends: his “ideas” will foster pain and trouble. Maybe it sounds good to the desperate Bibi. TWe will be suffering for his actions for years. Please don’t fall into the same trap with his imposing “answers” on your country.
49
I honestly don't understand how the settlers quoted in this article can be so self-assured that this is their land, and that the Palestinians don't belong there or are 'guests'. They seem to rely on a mythical idea that their ancestors lived in this area thousands of years ago, so it belongs to them, denying the long occupancy of other peoples.
172
@Wayne Cunningham Not to mention that many other tribes and groups settled in the region long before the Ancient Israelis.
76
@Andrew Eden-Balfour Absolutely true. The Hebrews/Israelites were NEVER the only tribe in the Levant and were themselves immigrants, originally from what is now Iraq.
The H/I kingdoms only lasted for some 500 intermittent years between 1000 BCE and 70 CE, a reign interrupted 11 times by conquest at the hands of some of those "others."
That relatively brief reign came between the 2,000 year old culture of the Canaanites (who founded Jerusalem) and the 1,500-year culture of Arabic Muslims. How can any claims of "exclusive" possession possibly apply?
64
It belongs to them now. Possession is nine tenths of the law.
“A president of the United States came along and said the people of Israel have the right to be here.” How does this mean anything? Trump has no validity in his own country, let alone Israel. And it's hard to imagine a worse arbiter of morality...
211
Bantu stands for Israelis? Israel reduced to a Swiss cheese like state? Weren't these Arab arguments against the Trump Plan? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Time will tell if this situation remains, but it's not the whole story, pun intended. These actions consolidate Israeli penetration into land ownership legitimcy. Complain today, but celebrations in the future.
4
It's called be careful what you wish for.
8
"Settlers" is definately a euphemism. Very willing to accept a gift from the devil, who intends to fulfill their Biblical promise?
45
@Richard
The more precise word is "colonists".
59
@Thomas Zaslavsky Or perhaps "thieves"
39
@Thomas Zaslavsky Thank you.
"Itamar, another would-be settlement enclave southeast of Nablus, has had its share of bloodshed" ... identified in this article as Palestinians committing violence against "settlers."
Here's another definition of violence: forcibly taking someone's land, with the assistance of the army, and then telling them they are now "guests" who might be allowed to stay if they are "prepared to peacefully accept the settlements."
Oh yeah, and "guests" will not be allowed to vote on Monday.
148
@BG I agree.
Well, isn't this more or less what happened in North America when the Europeans settlers took the land?
Maybe it wasn't so heavily populated back then, giving the feeling of emptiness, but the result was the same.
What is today an indigenous population fighting for their land, tomorrow they are a second-class population accepting their loss and oppressed by the settlers.
26
@GA
Exactly the same.
The question is, at this late date how could be that be...if not undone, at least laid to rest?
Maybe by respecting the land itself ... in hopes that our race -- the human race -- will survive.
“A president of the United States came along and said the people of Israel have the right to be here.”
The same president who's been impeached, whose policies promote civil strife, who says there are good and bad on both sides in the fight against fascism and white supremacy? Such a president has no moral authority to condone anything - much less settlements in disputed territory.
112
As a farmer, I'm appalled by what I see in this picture.
How do you think they achieve this sterile looking ground, with absolutely no vegetation whatsoever? (pesticides)
No humus in the soil and no cover, no vegetation, so the rates of erosion and nutrient depletion in this field must be tremendous. Nothing to retain moisture and prevent rapid evaporation rates, so they're wasting fresh water on a massive scale.
You have to cover and hold the soil, or you just end up with rocks and sterile dust. Once the topsoil blows away, it takes centuries to rebuild.
California farmers do the same thing on their huge, flat fields. No cover, no humus. They depend on enormous applications of synthetic fertilizers and groundwater irrigation (once those aquifers collapse, they will NEVER refill).
I think they need to hire one of us NE Montana dryland farmers to be a consultant and teacher. Our annual average rainfall is about nine inches and we still raise some pretty sweet crops, without unsustainable irrigation.
51
@Peter Rasmussen
You seem willing to help the Israelis who stole Palestinian lands make the land more profitable. The larger question, of course, is it moral and legal to assist the Israelis improve land that the UN and EU say are not Israel's.
28
@SPQR
Good grief.
I'm talking about treating Mother Earth with respect, farming in a sustainable way, so that she will continue to provide for us.
I made no political comment whatsoever. You're walking around with a chip on your shoulder, just waiting to be offended, perceiving antagonism where there is none.
4
@Peter Rasmussen Pardon me sir, but it's hard to believe you're a farmer if you don't know the difference between pesticides (which kill insect pests) and herbicides (which kill vegetation; but you're forgiven if you don't know that there is little humus in much of that region to begin with and indeed, it is not a major requirement for growing grapes. But I digress. The issue here is that invaders are forcing out the inhabitants, with support of a far-away fascist dictator in Mar a Lago-- and that's not "peace."
7
"Settlers"? Why use, repeatedly, a term that has become pejorative to describe people who bought their land in a voluntary transaction, live on it, and grow crops (on what was formerly waste land)?
How about "farmer", or (for the man in the picture) vintner (once he has grapes to harvest)?
11
@Jonathan Katz Because they are using land that doesn't belong to them under international law. The international community recognizes that land as only belonging to the Palestinians.
Put it this way; how would you feel if a group of people from the Middle East established a community on American soil that only follows and obeys the laws and customs of their homeland? Not the laws and customs of the land they are on? This is essentially how Palestinians feel about the settlers on their land that is meant for their state.
178
@Jonathan Katz
How about "colonists"?
36
@Jonathan Katz How about instead of settlers, we refer to these people as "invaders," "occupiers," or "fanatic reactionary ultra nationalists?"
139