Some Rational Thinking

By Yair Sheleg.

He published Pro-peace, not anti-settler and here are some excerpts:-

The renewed political negotiations require the peace camp to make a historic decision, which it should have made a long time ago: Is its main purpose the promotion of peace or the subjugation of the settlers?...the experiences of recent years show that occasionally the peace camp has initiated activities designed only to harm the settlers, even if these actions did not contribute to peace, and sometimes even undermined support for it. One example is the tremendous effort to remove outposts of negligible political importance. Another is the belligerent anti-settler rhetoric, which probably has distanced many people who are not "right-wing by nature" from the peace camp.

There are two dimensions to the decision on whether to promote peace. One is practical: The settlers must be a very relevant factor in the negotiations. Their needs must be regarded as an inseparable part of the talks, and the government must conduct a dignified dialogue with them...

...The second dimension is rhetorical. In recent years, the peace camp's discourse has focused not on the advantages peace will bring to Israel, but on the damage the settlers are causing: violence against the Palestinians, perpetuation of the occupation that ostensibly has increased intra-Israeli violence, undermining the rule of law, et al. There are two reasons for this focus: First off, the peace process (at least in the Palestinian arena) has failed to produce impressive achievements, and therefore it is difficult to focus on its advantages. Second, psychologically speaking it is more convenient to focus criticism on an internal Israeli factor (which if we can only control it, everything else will work out) than on an external factor.

But as much as we can understand the use of anti-settler rhetoric, it is still wrong, and (politically) dangerous for its users. All in all, the settlers are not more violent than other sectors of society. Nor is it true that due to the occupation, Israeli society is becoming more violent. If that were the case, the settlers and the religious Zionists would have the highest rates of murder, rape and nightclub violence. As we know, that is not the case.

And as far as the rule of law is concerned: At every commercial center that operates on Shabbat, such as in Shefayim or Bilu Center, there are more violations of the law than in all the outposts put together.