Today’s Ha’aretz reported on an opinion poll conducted settler youth, finding that that 87% believe that a Palestinian state will be created, 82% that settlements will be evacuated,
and 31% wishing to go away right now.
This Sunday morning we woke up with the news that in the Gaza Strip three Palestinian Bedouin women got killed by tank fire. As we were composing this message, an urgent call came from the village of Abud, where settlers
and soldiers are systematically destroying hundreds of olive trees.
This was not at all mentioned on the radio news. The anguish of the villagers concerned, already in dire economic straights, remains unremarked.
The fragile week-old cease-fire does seem to have put a halt to bombing attacks within Israel, but in the occupied territories the unequal struggle continues. On the one side, elusive guerrillas setting deadly ambushes to settler cars, on roads cut trough confiscated Palestinian land and from which Palestinian traffic is excluded;
On the other, the mightiest army in the Middle East subjecting the entire Palestinian population
under a strangling closure which cuts the West Bank into isolated enclaves, while rampaging militias of settler vigilantes (enjoying Israeli Defense Force protection) find easy targets in Palestinian villages, burning fields and sometimes houses.
Sure, it is not easy to be a settler these days. Today’s Ha’aretz reported on an opinion poll conducted settler youth, finding that that 87% believe that a Palestinian state will be created, 82% that settlements will be evacuated, and 31% wishing to go away right now.
Life is harsh for these youngsters, who did not choose to grow up at armed enclaves in occupied territory which has now burst out in rebellion.
In the meantime the highly unlikely peace emissary – CIA Chief George Tenet – seeks to stabilize the cease-fire. With Sharon unwilling to accept a straightforward freeze to settlement activities – without which Palestinians will consider cease-fire to be surrender – Tenet’s job seems not an easy one.
Author:
News Service: The Other Israel
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