Settlers confident Israel will lurch rightwards in election

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Entrenched in what they view as their Biblical heartland, the hard-line Jewish settlers of Hebron look forward with delight to next week's Israeli election.

Opinion polls forecast Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already at odds with the world over Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, will easily win a third term in office, with coalition partners who could push him further to the right.

The pro-settler Bayit Yehudi, a natural ally of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, is forecast to be the third largest faction in parliament. Two Bayit Yehudi candidates - Hebron settlers - have a real chance of winning legislative seats.

"The feeling is good," said Hebron settler Anat Cohen.

"It is clear that the people of Israel want a national government, a Jewish government that wants the land of Israel with Judea and Samaria," she said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/14/us-israel-election-settlers-idUSBRE90D0O220130114

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Some chilling quotes from the article...

"The people of Israel are marching with a clear, definite majority toward a wide land, a right-wing state with a Jewish, national, character and we believe that this is the beginning of the complete redemption," Cohen said. "This gives us resolve in facing our enemies."


"Every Arab family in Judea and Samaria can be given an incentive of half a million dollars to encourage their emigration to a place where they will find a better future," Feiglin said, adding that it was the only "real solution".

"This land was given to us by God," Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, number four on the Bayit Yehudi roster, said at the settler conference in Jerusalem. "We have no right to forgo one grain of this land."


How many despotic regimes have come to such perverse flower with the same kinds of language, obvious bellicosity towards groups considered as underclass, seemingly reasonable (to them) solutions as removal of said groups and promising for what in return and to what end? National purity? Ethnic purges?

History has visited this dark page too many times to want to see it written again by a supposed democracy.

Marching? Right Wing? Enemies? National character? These are the slogans of nationalism's hollow promise, fascism's ham-handed justice.

What kind of politician(s) would cite God as the reason for taking (let's be honest: thefting) land not belonging to them for the sole purpose of colonization of their people and the removal of another?


One people, one Empire, One Leader?

Israel this is not the path to assured peace and security. This kind of action is the path to national theocracy and ruin.

[holdencaufield]

3. "How many despotic regimes have come to such perverse flower with the same kinds of language?"

Familiar with "Manifest Destiny"?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. Yes. I'm also familiar with the rise of National Socialism in pre WWII Germany,

Italian Fascism during the same period, Soviet ham-handed Communism, Japaneses and English Imperial Empire as well as others. All those perverse experiments have come at a severe cost, not only to those countries who were supposedly ignorant of what evil they were creating, but to a great many of their victims as well.

What I find fascinating is that you seem to be deflecting away from my post by attempting to rationalize a chilling rightward shift in Israel, along with quotations by those with narrow bigoted visions, with a horrific period in American history. A poor choice.

The failed rhetoric that "Everybody is doing it...or has done it" is an excuse put forward by those who have no visible ability or desire to either debate or call into question the bigoted language or actions that others have done on the path towards evil.

I would have expected more from you, but I guess that I was wrong.

Good luck with empire. You'll need it.

[azurnoir]

2. sorry state of affairs in Israel especially for left leaning Israeli's

how did it get this way, IMO a Rightist shift anywhere is the product of fear, mostly fear of change

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. Exploited by those who desire a rise to power

with the assurances that "you'll be safe, but all we need to do is get rid of our enemies."