Looking At Us Throught the Lens of the NYTimes

A second installment of "Unsettled" -

West Bank Settlers Dig In, but Resolve May Have a Limit

Armed, ideological settlers are unlikely to engage in organized armed conflict with the Israeli military, as some fear, because their beliefs make them hesitant to turn against their own.

(See the video: "Keeping the Faith in Homesh")


Extract:

But scores of interviews over several months, including with settler firebrands, produced a different conclusion. Divided, leaderless and increasingly mystical, such settlers will certainly resist evacuation but are unlikely to engage in organized armed conflict with the Israeli military. Their belief that history can be best understood as a series of confrontations between the Jews and those who seek their destruction, and their faith in their ultimate triumph, make them hesitant to turn against their own, even in dire circumstances.

“We are idealists, but we are not crazy,” said Ayelet Sandak, who was removed from her Gaza settlement home and is helping to build an unauthorized outpost, Maoz Esther, with the goal of both expanding the Jewish presence and diverting the military. “By building outposts we are keeping the army away from the main settlements. We are sure that if we are strong, we will not be forced to move.”

As part of its commitment to a two-state solution, Israel has promised to dismantle two dozen outposts like this one in the coming months. The Obama administration’s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, is back in the region trying to set up a summit meeting for new peace talks. Yet officials have been slow to act on these outposts, worried that the move could break this society in two.

Certainly, some settler leaders speak in ominous tones. “They’ll have to kill us to get us out of here,” said Itay Zar, founder of Havat Gilad, sitting in the outpost’s unpaved central square, a pink sun setting over the majestic Samarian hills before dropping into the Mediterranean.

and

...interviews with settlers suggest that the threat of violence is largely a political strategy. The great majority say they realize that if the bulldozers arrive, their fight is over.

“We cannot allow ourselves to wait until the soldiers are at our doors,” noted David Ha’ivri, a spokesman for the northern West Bank settlers. “We must prepare strategic maneuvers in advance.”

By that, he mostly means politics. If the soldiers do come, the settlers are unlikely to fight. “People won’t leave their homes peacefully but they will not shoot soldiers,” predicted Shaul Goldstein, who is the leader of the regional council of the Gush Etzion settler bloc and is considered a moderate.

A senior Israeli general in the West Bank agreed. He said the army was awaiting orders to evacuate the two dozen outposts and was preparing for everything, including soldier refusal and settler bloodshed directed both at Palestinians and at security forces. But, he added, speaking under army rules of anonymity: “I don’t think there will be a lot of resistance. Deep inside, most settlers love Israel and love the Israeli Army.”

...there are several reasons to take it seriously.

First, the Gaza operation splintered the settlers, discrediting the traditional leaders in the eyes of the new generation.

Second, many settlers believe that they and their supporters are inheriting the mantle of Zionism, so promoting an internal war would be counterproductive.

Finally, the direction that many of the most radical settlers have taken has been toward the esoteric, not combat.

and

“We can talk as aggressively as we like on the right,” said Anita Toker, a spokeswoman for the Gaza evacuees, “but how many people are we?”

Ms. Toker, a founder of the first civilian settlement in Gush Katif, believes that only the mobilization of the Israeli masses can prevent a further withdrawal. But she is not optimistic. “So far everything is polarized,” she said.

Other settlers are banking on a refusal by Israeli soldiers to obey orders. But in a sign of the divisions racking the settler movement and given the grave external threats to the country, many reject that approach.

“Above all we are dealing with the existence of Israel,” said Israel Harel, a leading intellectual of the settlement enterprise, who established the settlers’ council in the 1970s and whose son, Itai, helped found a nearby outpost.

“Once soldiers do not obey orders,” Mr. Harel said, “it is the beginning of the end of the Jewish state.”