Morally vs Ideologically Bankrupt

Since Netanyahu’s election as Prime Minister in February of 2009, Obama and his cronies have delivered a constant pressure upon Israel to agree to a total freeze on construction of settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Netanyahu, always the spineless one tried to compromise on the issue: a partial building freeze in the West Bank (allowing for natural growth, which was never clearly defined or explained) and the completion of projects already underway. The result was last week’s building freeze declaration, which, in theory, was to ban only those projects which were not yet begun and were not part of the 500 units approved recently for construction.


Let’s count the charges against the Netanyahu gov’t:
1) Nixing approval for new units in both the West Bank and Jerusalem even before the 10 month freeze, aggravating one of the worst housing crises in Israeli history.

2) Violating its own restrictions on the extent of the building freeze, banning even the recently approved units and even illegally confiscating (read: stealing) building equipment.

3) Proceeding with the freeze despite the fact that it will cost the economy an estimated 500 million dollars, further deteriorate the already difficult housing situation, and get in return absolutely nothing.


Netanyahu spinelessly uses the freeze – and the damage it does to Israel, especially to struggling young families – so he can feel more at ease talking to Obama. But the settlement movement is just as bankrupt as Netanyahu. Since the founding of Gush Emunim, the core of the settlement movement, in 1974 the settlers and their allies inside the Green Line have been unable to formulate a comprehensive plan which would ensure the survival of their enterprise. Their answer to every problem or crisis is to build more; more houses and more settlements. When the demographic threat to the State of Israel crystallized in the 1980s they offered no solution (like some form of population transfer to encourage Arab emigration), and so eventually were subjected to the disastrous Oslo process in the 1990’s and the 2005 Gaza Disengagement. The mainstream settlement movement and the Israeli government are two heads of the same bankrupt coin: one morally lacking, the other, ideologically.