BBC Takes Another Look At YESHA

From a BBC special report by Tim Franks with whom I am acquainted:-

A short distance north from Tel Aviv lives a man who embodies both those contradictions. Naftali Bennett is the CEO of the Yesha Council - the Settlers' Council, which represents the ideologically motivated Jews who have set up home in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But Mr Bennett does not live in the territories. Rather, this young hi-tech millionaire has just moved into a large house in Israel's expensive central plain.

He says the protests are a sign of maturity and health: "What we saw over the summer was, look, there ain't going to be peace any time soon with the Arabs. So let's fix Israel."

Naftali Bennett predicts that the next Israeli general election (in just under two years' time) will be the first in Israel's history where domestic, internal politics - rather than "the conflict" - will be what the parties scrap over.

The CEO of the Settlers' Council also sees a symbolic significance in him living, not in the West Bank, but close to Tel Aviv. The settlers are moving in to the mainstream of Israel.

Rising influence

Take the conscript army - one of the founding institutions of the state. It is not simply that there are growing numbers of the religious and the settlers performing their national service, and then rising up the professional ranks.

Amiad Cohen, the head of security at the West Bank settlement of Eli, 40km outside Jerusalem, is one of those teaching at the growing number of pre-army schools. He travels regularly to one such school, in Tel Aviv, to lead discussions, with secular teenagers.

As we walk the perimeter of his settlement, Mr Cohen gestures to the hills around. "This is our country. We will live here. The question is: 'will it be with peace, or will they force us to fight?'. So yes I'm happy that we influence. The army is a mirror of who we are. And I'm happy that the army is changing."

I guess democracy does have advantages.

What is left, though, are the other elites: the media and the cultural and academic 'those-who-are-to-be-obeyed'.

Oops. I mean what is left to be changed.


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