Originally posted by Intifad
[email protected] 19 2005, 10:03 AM
Anybody notice how the Western media is portraying the evacuation of these illegal settlers?
It is beyond belief that the illegal settlers be given such coverage of their "agony" and "anguish."
When Palestinians are regularly evicted from their homes, they are given five minutes to get out with as many belongings they can fetch, before the Israeli occupiers blow up or demolish their homes. The Western media paints these house demolitions as pictures of self-defence on behalf of the Israeli occupiers.
Yeah, I agree. And the ultrarightist protestors are being treated with kid gloves, certainly compared to how Palestinians nonviolently protesting the construction of the separation wall are treated. (Shot with less-lethal rubber-coated steel pellets, euphemistically called nonlethal rubber bullets.)
A sizable minority of these settlers, especially in Gaza, are not "common mass"...they are conscious ultrarightist scum, who've come to the occupied territories with the intent of disposessing Palestinians, claiming the land for Israel, and terrorizing Palestinians with armed gangs. Their anguish is the anguish of seeing the death of the dream of a "greater Israel" in the whole of the "Holy Land"....that's not an anguish anyone should sympathize with.
Others come for economic motives, the settlements are heavily subsidized by the government so it's easy to achieve a comfortable middle-class suburban-style life on land stolen from Palestinians...but how "common mass" is that, either?
These people have been treated as pawns, their lives endangered and sacrificed by the Israeli state for its territorial ambitions. If you want to sympathize with their suffering, sympathize with the suffering that they were left in the war zone for so long!
The Israeli state encouraged them to move to the occupied territories, subsidized their home purchases...then their homeownership tied 'em there! And the Israeli government refused to buy 'em out and let 'em move back to Israel as Palestinian resistance grew...that's still the case for the many tens of thousands of settlers in the West Bank which Israel intends to keep there. It's like a real-life "Amityville Horror" on a larger scale....
Israeli columnist Ran HaCohen points out:
The "poor settlers" image dominates the Israeli media not because it is in love with the settlers, but because it is obedient. Prime Minister Sharon wants the eviction to be portrayed as a huge national trauma – as a means against any future withdrawals – so that's what the media is doing. ....
There are other stories, other perspectives the media could choose. Take the story of Dugit. The small settlement on the northern coast of Gaza is represented just as any other: "uprooting," tears and all. Nobody seems to remember that 10 years ago the settlers of Dugit went to demonstrate in front of PM Rabin's office in Jerusalem, demanding to get a piece of coast inside Israel and get out of Gaza. It's time for peace now, they said, let us out. The government refused. I'd love to hear their perspective: how many of them were killed or injured in Palestinian terror attacks since? What do they think of the dirty game played with them? Not a word of it in the media.
Stop Your Sobbing (http://antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=7007)
One of his old columns explaining how many settlers wanted to leave and suggesting that those who want to help them, raise money to help them leave. (http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h061702.html)