Buying off the settlers

by Uri Avnery,

Perhaps there are countries where drivers stuck in
traffic jams don’t get annoyed. They know they can do
nothing about it, so they wait patiently. Think their
own thoughts, listen to the radio or read until the jam
disperses.

We Israelis are not like that. We are a nervous lot. We
have no patience. When we are stuck in a jam, we curse
the world and the government, demanding a solution,
perhaps a dirt road by which we might escape.

This is why I find it so hard to understand the tactics
of the settlers, who use the traffic jam as their main
weapon. If they believe that by blocking major traffic
arteries, burning tires and creating huge jams
throughout the country they are going to win the
sympathy of the public, they are even more divorced
from reality than it seemed already.

Actually, the blocking of roads is a declaration of war
against the Israeli public. It marks a clear front-
line: the settlers and their adherents on one side and
the majority of the population on the other.

That is, indeed, the real front-line. Their stupid
tactics just confirm this. They sense that the great
majority is against them and say, in effect: if you
don’t love us, at least fear us. If you don’t submit to
us, we shall turn your life into hell.

Even foreigners, who follow events on their television
screens, can distinguish the creators of this mayhem
from ordinary Israelis. Almost all the rioters are
knitted-kippa-wearing religious youth, the products of
the religious-messianic-nationalist-fanatical
educational hothouses.

This is a minority, something between 15% and 25% of
the population. But a well organized minority. Their
hard core is concentrated in the settlements and the
Yeshivot (religious seminaries) and is easy to
mobilize. They have leaders with absolute authority,
who stand effectively above the law. Their totalitarian
discipline finds expression at election times, when 99%
of the votes in religious neighborhoods go to the
candidate chosen by their rabbis.

Such features lend this minority a power far beyond
their numbers. Especially when faced with a weak-kneed,
diffuse, apathetic, unorganized majority, without any
coherent ideology. That is a classic situation, which
has led in many countries to the establishment of
fascist dictatorships on the ruins of a democracy that
nobody was ready to stand up for.

In the superb German film "Der Untergang" (Downfall),
which has reached Israel, too, one sees that even in
the last hours of his life, Adolf Hitler expressed
nothing but contempt for the "degenerate democracies".
But the historic truth is that the "degenerate
democracies" stood up to him. True, Britain and the
United States would not have overcome him, 60 years
ago, without the totalitarian Soviet Union on their
side, but they proved that the democratic regime can be
counted on at the moment of truth, can mobilize itself
and fight even harder than the totalitarian states. The
Third World War (the so-called "Cold War") has proved
this again.

Is the Israeli democracy up to it?

An old Israeli joke tells of an Israeli captured by
cannibals. They put him in a pot and start to light a
fire under it, "Wait! Wait!" he shouts, "First of all
hit me! Beat me!" When they do so, he jumps out of the
pot, picks up his gun and shoots all of them.

"If you had a weapon, why didn’t you use it before?" he
is asked.

"I can only shoot when I am angry," he replies.

Perhaps that is true for all ordinary Israelis. In
order to stand up to the settlers, they need to be
angry. And the settlers, with the blindness typical of
fanatics, are doing everything possible to make them
angry. Their experience over the last 37 years has led
them to believe that there is no limit to the
cowardice, the indifference and the patience of the
majority.

They have a lot of evidence for this belief, since all
the media have turned themselves into willing
propaganda organs for this dictatorial minority, which
has declared war on the government, the Knesset and the
entire democratic system.

We have already expounded on this amazing phenomenon:
on every news program, in all TV networks, the settlers
fill at least 50% of the time with an unending stream
of tricks and gimmicks. In the absolute majority of
cases, no contrary voice is heard at all, not even for
the sake of "balance". The impression created is that
this is a private war between the settlers and the
Prime Minister (the "Successor of Hitler", as some
graffiti have it), and does not concern the general
public.

The height of absurdity is reached on State Television,
which every citizen is compelled by law to support
financially: the entire public pays for what is in
practice an anti-State propaganda organ.

During the last years of the German Weimar republic,
one of its remarkable traits was the tolerant attitude
of the courts towards the Nazi hoodlums, who rioted,
beat up passers-by who "looked Jewish", waged street
battles with Communists, wounded and killed. They
invariably got off with light sentences. The judges
treated them as misguided good guys, real patriots who
overdid it a bit. Anti-Nazis, on the other hand, when
accused of the same behavior, were severely punished.
Is something similar happening here?

Like judges, like policemen. That, too, reminds one of
the situation here. When the police are faced with
right-wing rioters they never use tear gas, rubber-
coated bullets, salt bullets or water cannon - which
are routinely used against Jewish peace demonstrators,
not to mention Arab ones, who may be confronted with
live rounds too.

All this is not too much for the ordinary Israeli, at
least not up to now. But it is quite possible that
money matters will be.

The settlers are playing a very sophisticated double
game. Their leaders threaten civil war. On the walls
there appear graffiti announcing "We have killed Rabin,
we shall kill Sharon!" (Rabin’s murderer did indeed
come from this camp, but for years we were admonished
not to mention this, because it might "split the
nation".) Every day, spokespersons use the media to
sketch blood-curdling scenarios: masses of sympathizers
will march on Gush Katif, traffic throughout the
country will come to a standstill, matters will "get
out of hand", blood will be spilled.

At the same time, the representatives of the settlers
negotiate the compensation they will be paid for their
"uprooting". It starts at 400 thousand dollars and may
reach several million for a family. They will also get
a luxurious mobile home, worth half a million Shekels,
for temporary accommodation, and it is theirs to keep
even after the government builds them a permanent home.
There are also plans to give the settlers a whole
stretch of territory north of Ashkelon, where they will
enjoy what amounts to de facto local autonomy. It is
proposed to give them two dunums for one, the land to
be taken from Kibbutzim and Moshavim. One settler lady
boasted on television about her 35 hothouses, each
worth 200 thousand dollars, for which she expects full
compensation.

The fanatics declare that they will not take the money,
that they will fight to the last drop of blood. But in
practice, every threat just raises the price. The more
extreme the language of the settlers, the more money
the government is frightened into offering. Hundreds of
thousands will march on Gush Katif? Fifty thousand
dollars more per family. Thousands of soldiers will
refuse orders? Another 100 thousand dollars. Blood will
flow? Two hundred thousand more. The sky is the limit.

But we have seen this opera before. We remember the
evacuation of the Yamit region in North Sinai in 1982.
Settlers threatened suicide in a bunker, Tzahi Hanegbi
(now a minister) and his comrades climbed a tall tower,
zealots promised violent resistance. It ended with the
farce of the white foam battles on the roofs. And what
about the money? In the end, not one single settler -
not one! - refused to accept the fat compensation on
offer. Some of them settled in Gush Katif and will now
receive compensation for the second time. If they are
shrewd enough to move to a West Bank settlement, they
could finish up as very rich people indeed.

All this is happening while thousands of teachers are
being dismissed for lack of funds, vital welfare
institutions are being closed, cancer patients and
others are being condemned to death because their
medicines fall outside the "health basket" that
qualifies for government subsidy.

And that may, in the end, arouse even the apathetic
majority. The moment will come when it will get up and
say: Enough! If one looks carefully, one may already
discern signs of a rising tide of anger, the "I am not
a sucker!" syndrome.

That may be the most positive outcome of what is
happening now around the "disengagement plan": The
abyss between the settlers and the general public is
growing ever wider. The settlers themselves, in their
unlimited avarice and hooliganism, are helping to bring
this about. Nothing symbolizes this better than the
blocking of the roads.

This Tuesday Israel’s most popular TV network (Channel
2) launches a five-chapter series with Israel’s most
popular anchorman, Haim Yavin, a veritable "Mr.
Consensus", depicting the settlers as "a fanatical,
crazy, racist, disgusting, violent and dangerous sect",
in the words of a prominent critic.

Could the consensus be changing?

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