IDF troops hang sign at base: We won't evacuate settlers

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israeli settlers, Haaretz TV

A number of Israel Defense Forces from the Nachshon Battalion on Monday hung a sign at their basis proclaiming that their unit would refuse to evacuate Israelis from West Bank settlements.

The move comes nearly a month after soldiers from the Shimshon Battalion waved banners with the same message during their graduation ceremony in Jerusalem. Two soldiers were expelled from their brigade and given 20 days in military prison following that incident.

The leader of the anti-settlement Peace Now movement, Yariv Oppenheimer, accused certain settler leaders of "prompting a rebellion within the IDF and endangering Israeli society."
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"Right-wing leaders and all government parties must speak out against this phenomenon before the army loses control of its soldiers," said Oppenheimer.

Extrete rightist Itamar Ben Gvir said meanwhile that the anti-evacuation movement was picking up steam among settlers.

The Shimshon and Nachshon Battalions are both part of the Kfir Brigade, set up to battle Palestinian guerrillas in the West Bank. Such duties have diminished amid a law-and-order drive by Abbas's U.S.-backed administration, which wants to project power in the face of the rival Hamas Islamists now ruling Gaza....

read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1128539.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MUAD_DIB]

2. How colonial of you. Perhaps you think that Israel deserves more? ;D

Tell me. Do you believe that the Palestinians deserve a homeland?

[TheMadMonk]

3. The argument that Israel needs a buffer zone, could possibly be entertained...

...if that was all they did with the land.

However, what happens and has happened for decades is that Israeli settlers move into the zone(s) oftimes displacing the existing Palestinian inhabitants and, at least as often as not, doing so in a manner that is pretty much guaranteed to royally piss off those inhabitants. Inhabitants that were for the most part ordinary people who simply wanted to get on with their lives in peace themselves. Until their land is taken without compensation. Until they are forced from their homes with nothing except the clothes on their backs and whatever they carry. Until they are forced to watch helplessly as their home and possessions are destroyed by the bulldozers coming through the back wall even as they are driven, (often at gunpoint) out their front doors.

Until they are left with absolutely nothing to lose. And given only the incentive to take back what is theirs by whatever means is available to them.

Kudos to those soldiers who refuse to take part in the Israeli government's Hamas recruitment drives.

(edit to add):- I recently watch a program covering the recent destruction of (sometimes) decades old Palestinian housing in East Jerusalem, on the pretext that no planing permission existed. A high ranking Israeli official baldly stated on camera, "We are God's Chosen People. We do not care what the rest of the world thinks." (That may not be an exact word for word quote, but there is absolutely no way of interpreting what this person said as meaning anything but that.)

If that belief is widely held, and the behaviour of Israel certainly does nothing to disabuse that notion, then a thouand years and more of Jewish persecution can be easily understood. No one, likes to be told, "I'm better than you. Neener! Neener!"

[pelsar]

5. a little correction.....not that it matters...but sometimes facts have an affect

the vast majority of the settlers live on the hilltops that are/were in fact uninhabited...since arab village are built on the slopes.....

i'm sure it wont affect your opinion, but at least now you can adjust your facts and find another reason. (i assuming that your opinion is not based on any relevant facts, since yours were wrong)

[TheMadMonk]

6. Nit picking. Exactly where the Settlers locate their buildings...

...is irrelevant. The inhabitants of those Arab villages are still forcibly removed without compensation, their possessions destroyed and their homes razed (often in front of them) on the slimest of pretexts or no pretext at all.

I notice you didn't address those 'facts'.

Nor the fact that at least some Israelis are of the opinion that they are God's Chosen. That as such they can do as they please. And that anyone who objects to this God given right, can go Cheney themselves.


As for why the Arabs left the hilltops uninhabited. There's a very simple reason. Water doesn't flow uphill.

[pelsar]

7. facts are not nitpicking...they affect the opinions of those who are less informed...

inhabitants of those Arab villages are still forcibly removed without compensation, their possessions destroyed and their homes razed (often in front of them) on the slimest of pretexts or no pretext at all

which arab villages are you talking about?.....during the 48 war? ...happen to the jews as well....

or are you referring to the settlers post 67 of which it didnt happen?

and some israelis think they are gods chosen?...so big deal..so do americans, christians, progressives, muslims etc...each has their own religion and believe their god has chosen them....does it upset you that some israelis are just like everyone else?..is that the problem?

actually the reason the arab villages are on the slopes is so that they can farm the valleys and not waste the land....water doesnt flow upslope either btw.

====

i can address any and all facts....just do some reading before you post your facts, google makes it really really easy and on the side, you might end up actually learning something about the conflict.

[TheMadMonk]

9. AFAIK Arabs/Palestinians are being forced off their own land right now.

If not to make way for further settlements, then to provide security for existing ones.

Entire neighbourhoods are being razed in East Jerusalem on the pretext that there has been no planning permission. Many of these buildings date back thirty years or more, (I would not be at all surprised to learn that a good many predate the formation of the state) and for all that time the state has been perfectly willing to collect taxes, and allowed those buildings to stand unmolested. Now they want that land for themselves/imigrants and they are taking it.


Yes I am aware that others believe/behave as if they are god's chosen, but AFAIK only the Jews have the chutzpah to openly proclaim it and claim it as the only justification they need to do as they please to the sons of Ishmael and ignore the opinions of everyone else.

[pelsar]

10. google is your friend....whats happens when your wrong?

but AFAIK only the Jews have the chutzpah to openly proclaim it

i take it you haven't been listening to the Palestinians?...Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PA?... (not to mention the whole war in Bosnia and the arab world in general...)
__

lets start with the simple.....why didn't you know the above?......or perhaps you disagree with me and in your opinion those Palestinians are not claiming they have god at their back.

so which is it?

the answer is going to be interesting, i see three options:
1 your going to express massive ignorance of your knowledge of the Palestinians (you didn't know)
2 you going to express a belief that even though you heard about it, its only a fringe group that have no influence on the Palestinians.... ( a variation of the ignorance version)

or the one i would bet on:

3 oppressed people bear no responsibility for what they say or do...i.e whatever they say or do can be excused as a result of the occupation....this means basically you believe that they are mentally retarded and you have an extremely low opinion of them (they would probably disagree with you if this is your belief, but then, what do they know, they're "just Palestinians")

perhaps there is a fourth option....i would love to hear it

4_______________

[TheMadMonk]

12. Perhaps it's just semantics. But the mainstream of most religions...

...put themselves at at least a slight remove from such a bald proclamation. They "do God's work". They are favoured by their god, but for the most part even the fanatics on the fringe also accept that they can lose their god's favour by doing "wrong".

Amongst the world's mainstream religions AFAIK only the Jews hold as an absolute core tennet that by the simple virtue of being a Jew they are amongst God's chosen, and that only by abandoning Judaism will God "unchoose" them. No other action of theirs will cause their god to abandon them.

[oberliner]

13. How about Mormons? nt

[pelsar]

14. your not kidding are you.....have you ever listened to

to a christian extremist..hamasnikim?....

would some quotes help from other religions?...or have you simply decided this on your own?

[Violet_Crumble]

11. All religious extremists think they're god's fave religious whackos...

Yes I am aware that others believe/behave as if they are god's chosen, but AFAIK only the Jews have the chutzpah to openly proclaim it and claim it as the only justification they need to do as they please to the sons of Ishmael and ignore the opinions of everyone else.

And none of them are afraid of proclaiming so when it suits them. It's something that's not confined to any one group. While there are religious whacko elememts in the Israeli govt, my impression has always been that the govt of Israel sees itself not as *chosen by god*, but special because Israel's a liberal democracy and a pretty Westernised one at that. The govt is driven by nationalism, not by religious extremism...

[Crunchy Frog]

4. Court martial them.

Really, Israel is going to fall apart at the seams if it can't enforce the law in the territories and it can't discipline its military.

[sabbat hunter]

8. if the soldiers defy orders

I hope that they are tried under a court martial and face the punishment for doing so.

[Scurrilous]

15. End West Bank anarchy

Tough attitude needed towards illegal construction, disobedient soldiers

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3807347,00.html

<snip>

"What’s the greatest kind of chutzpa? Establishing an illegal factory in an illegal community in order to manufacture mobile homes for more illegal communities. And all of this is done openly, in broad daylight, under the government’s nose and with the knowledge of law enforcement authorities.

Actually, this is not only chutzpa. It’s all-out anarchy.

Such illegal mobile home factory exists, for example, in the Gilad Farm in the south Mount Hebron area. There are two more factories like it in the West Bank, and this is no coincidence. It’s much more convenient and safer to do it in the West Bank.

Law enforcement authorities may hold up mobile homes manufactured within the Green Line or at least monitor their transfer into the West Bank. In order to move mobile homes from within the Green Line to the West Bank, one needs a permit. However, within the West Bank one needs no permits from anyone.

Moreover, these mobile homes have amazing qualities: They can disappear, and suddenly appear on some hill somewhere. In two communities, for example, 12 new mobile homes appeared out of nowhere to house new immigrants from France. And where will they get water and electricity? The local authority head, who receives his salary from the government, approves it, the regional engineer signs it, and everything becomes legal.

This is what the settlers refer to as “natural growth,” and they expect the Israeli government to face the Americans with clean hands using this argument. The prime minister and defense minister convinced Envoy Mitchell that there are births in the territories - indeed, there are; some of those newborns are immigrants from France.

Everyone thinks the Americans are idiots and that we can continue feeding them such tales forever. Later we get insulted when Obama looks at us funny and doesn’t believe Netanyahu.

Needless to say, the prime minister and ministers are well aware of these tricks, but they prefer to turn a blind eye to them. There is no order and there are no judges; nobody applies any law in the territories. So is it any wonder that this anarchy is also trickling down into the army? What is anyone going to do to these unruly soldiers?

Nobody should be surprised later if the displays of protest against the evacuation of homes and settlements will merely accelerate. After all, these troops are sent to a few days in a military jail, as if they committed a traffic violation, and later automatically turn into heroes."