Israeli settlers are going on the rampage, burning mosques, Palestinian houses and lands. They are ostensibly protesting the temporary and partial settlement construction freeze that the Israeli government ordered last month. In reality, they are laying down the “price tag” - as graffiti sprayed in a vandalised mosque near Salfit put it - that any Israeli government will have to pay if action is taken against settlements.
And action urgently needs to be taken, otherwise the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and with it the stability of the region and beyond, will be held hostage to extreme right-wing Jewish settlers, a wholly irrational breed of people.
Anyone who claims divine entitlement to earthly property harbours unstable thoughts that can only lead to bad things. So what about settlers who truly believe God gave them the land of Palestine?
Not only are they not dissuaded by their government, they are enticed into occupied territories with cheaper housing and tax breaks, and given licence to carry arms. Dangerous weapons in dangerous people’s hands.
So, the Israeli government is facing a significant problem of its own making.
The settlement project was always a mistake. When it turned messianic, it became a major mistake. But it is a mistake that Israel needs to rectify, no ifs and buts.
Israel must not be let off the hook on this one. It is Israel’s responsibility, and Israel’s alone, to disarm the fringe settlers and remove them from occupied territories before we witness a repeat of Baruch Goldstein, or worse.
There are, of course, many settlers who are there simply for the economic advantage of living in occupied land. These are easier to deal with because if they went to occupied territories for economic, rather than ideological, reasons they, presumably, can be tempted away again with similar incentives. Again, this is a problem Israel needs to solve.
What must not happen is that Palestinians be asked to solve the problem, either by accepting to give up land to the settlers or by bearing the brunt of the unleashed rage of these armed and dangerous extremists.
The world needs to make very clear to Israel that its settlers have to be reined in and muzzled. And while doing that, it should also insist on a proper settlement construction freeze rather than the sham that Israel is trying to appease its settlers with.
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