MAILBOX: Israel's passionate defenders look cool and calm compared with it's critics

The UK, Canada and France have sanctioned Israeli West Bank settlements, banning their goods and advertising after months of settler violence and plans for new construction near Jerusalem. A BizNews Tribe Member argues the move is a sledgehammer doing a scalpel's job. Most settlers are not extremists, they write, and the blanket bans will hurt Palestinian workers employed in those settlements too. With Israel's election just six weeks away, the timing may even backfire, handing hardline politicians a fresh grievance rather than curbing settler violence or saving the two-state solution..Submitted by a member of the BizNews community.I don’t think I’m talking out of turn here when I say that the international discourse around Israel trends more towards supercharged, hyperbolic emotion than towards calm, rational debate. Certainly Israel’s defenders can be extremely passionate, but they look positively cool, calm and collected in relation to Israel’s critics, let alone its most ardent haters.When talking about Israel’s conduct during the bloody and brutal war that Hamas started, as the most obvious example, mere criticism of Israel’s inevitable wartime mistakes or even of any particular policies or actions that might amount to war crimes, simply won’t do. Israel has to be guilty of nothing less than the greatest crime imaginable: genocide. And it has to be guilty of it before even committing to a full scale invasion. Such reactions are, to say the least, unhelpful. Oh, they help empower both the far-right in Israel and antisemites worldwide, and they help give radical Islamists the cover, if not the legitimacy, to continue spreading terror across the globe and oppressing their “own” people with impunity, but actually helping the people most affected by the conflict; the Israelis and Palestinians for whom this is a messy reality and not just a neat ideological morality play? They barely even seem to enter the equation.That this sort of approach is taken by those on the political extremes is entirely unexpected, but it’s a whole other story when this kind of zero-sum, hyperbolic, unsubtle thinking has infiltrated the mainstream.The UK Revolt?This is where we found ourselves a couple of days ago when the UK’s Labour government joined the governments of Canada and France in applying economic sanctions to Israel’s “settlements” in the West Bank. These sanctions include a blanket ban on all products originating in the West Bank, as well as on any advertisements for West Bank settlements in the UK. They’re also intended to apply economic pressure on any individual or organisation involved in “settlement expansion”.These sanctions are a response to extremist settlers who have been attacking innocent Palestinians for months, with no small degree of impunity, as this current far-right Israeli government are either incapable or unwilling to put a stop to it. The sanctions are also a response to the announced plans to build new settlements in the so-called E1 section of the West Bank, east of Jerusalem, which would, very likely, make the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state impossible in the West Bank. Far-right ministers in the Israeli government have openly boasted of the E1 settlements doing precisely that.So, where’s the problem in the UK government’s actions, you may well ask? Surely, even if you’re pro-Israel, you can understand the decision to sanction those responsible for Jewish terrorism and for potentially hammering the final nail in the two-state solution? After all, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham said about the sanctions, they are "aimed not at the Israeli people, but in support of the two-state solution".And, indeed, is UK Foreign Minister, Ed Milliband, actually wrong when he says, “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists. And all too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians?"These are serious allegations and they are clearly not the mad musings of an extremist, as it is objectively true that extremist settlers are out of control, and this current Israeli government has failed to stop them, even in the worst cases, outright supporting them. And regardless of whether you still believe in the two-state solution or not, these new settlements will make that particular answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict difficult, if not impossible.But as you may have worked out by now, I’m writing this article for a reason and it’s not to agree with the Labour government, even if I do largely agree entirely with the evils of settler violence, the cynicism of the E1 settlements, and the increasing need for this Israeli government to be voted out of office at the end of October.It all comes down to what I started this article with, which I can most succinctly put this way: the UK government is addressing a problem that requires a scalpel with a sledgehammer, all because the sledgehammer makes the louder noise.Allow me to explain.Some Much Needed PerspectiveThe situation in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza are, if nothing else, inordinately complicated. And drawing the line between Israelis and settlers doesn’t come remotely close to capturing even a small part of that complexity.First, though, I have nothing but the greatest contempt for these Jewish extremists and believe they all should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, they represent a few hundred individuals out of hundreds of thousands of settlers. They may well intend to “ethnically cleanse” the West Bank of Palestinian Arabs, but they’re in no way capable of achieving anything of the sort.By contrast, the “moderate” Palestinian Authority is guilty of turning its entire population against Israel and against Jews, as it fills its textbooks and its children TV with antisemitic hatred and glorification of “martyrdom”. It also literally incentivises terrorists with its “pay to slay” programme.The UK are quick to pass sanctions on the entire “settler” community based on the actions of a few hundred individuals, but is more than happy to keep funding the PA, which has resolutely failed to reform despite promises to the contrary.Understanding the Settlement MovementAs for the “settler movement”, it is constantly misunderstood and often intentionally misconstrued. Even without getting into the extremely knotty question of the legality or lack thereof of settling disputed land, especially with an opposing power that refuses to compromise, the overwhelming majority of settlements are not these massive obstacles to peace that they are frequently painted as. The vast majority of settlers live just over the “green line” that is supposed to delineate between the future Palestinian state and Israel, but only just, and they all reside in Area C, the part of the West Bank that according to the Oslo Accords, was supposed to be under Israeli administration until the state of Palestine was formally established.These settlements may well be an obstacle for peace, but far from fatally so. With land swaps, these settlements can become either part of Israel or Palestine if and when Palestine is established. More than that, certain “settlements” like Ariel and Gush Etzion were established as major cities long before the Oslo Accords committed to them being part of Israel in any two state solution. Finally, “settlement expansion” is itself a misnomer as it can refer to new settlements but can also refer simply to building up existing settlements or building up already Jewish (and non-Jewish) areas in “East” Jerusalem.I say none of this to persuade you of the legitimacy of the settlements, only that they are far too complicated and too varied for the UK government to pass blanket sanctions on anything do with them. These sanctions will also, without any question whatsoever, massively hurt the Palestinian workers employed in these “settlements” – who have already borne the brunt of the economic fallout of October 7th.Dealing with Bad ActorsAnd yet, for all of this, the fact remains that there are violent extremist settlers and there is a government that emboldens them, who also intend to build a major new settlement block that actually will greatly hurt any chance of a Palestinian state. But does the UK government have the obligation, or even the right, to intervene?This too is not a simple question, not least because moral “rightness” may have little to do with moral “effectiveness”. Will the actions taken by the UK stop the development of E1 settlements or just hurt Israelis and Palestinians? Will they stop settler violence? And is it up to the UK to sanction another government for its failures at law enforcement, because if so, I have a few rather more deserving recipients in mind? And, considering that we are just six weeks away from what may genuinely, without hyperbole, be the most important election in Israel’s history, is it really a good idea to give Bibi and his cohorts some unintended but effective credibility and clout by giving him yet another “enemy” to scare the Israeli public with? Or to interfere with another countries elections at all?.Read more:.US Congressman Steube's bill targets SA with sanctions, aid freeze over alleged antisemitic actions against Israel.We all know the answer to that. Just like we know that these sanctions are more about a flailing Labour’s desperation to hold onto its anti-Israel constituents that it is at very real risk of losing to the far-left Green Party. Most cynically, this move was taken days before the Jewish high holidays when the already extremely vulnerable Jewish community in Britain will be even greater targets for groups who justify their terrorism and antisemitic violence by blaming Israel.Where is the UK’s sense of moral duty when it comes to its own citizens and to the country’s most frequently attacked minority group?I guess those 200,000 votes just don’t count enough. .Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

MAILBOX: Israel's passionate defenders look cool and calm compared with it's critics

Related Stories

He built a $1.5bn bank. Now Revolut, Discovery Bank and PEP are circling

BNC#9 | Wheatley Q&A: Will the SARB take your crypto? And Eskom's missed Bitcoin windfall

Crypto, investment firms push back against SARB and Treasury's draft cross-border rules

Empathy isn't a "bug" in Western civilisation, it's the foundation: Ivo Vegter