Word: settlements
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Your important story about the illegal settlement outpost of Migron, in the West Bank, erroneously referred to Peace Now as a "pacifist group." The organization was established by Israeli soldiers and has supported some Israeli military measures, including Israel's military response to Hizballah gunmen who crossed from Lebanon into Israel to kidnap two soldiers in the summer of 2006. Our objection to the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories does not stem from a pacifist philosophy but from a pragmatic conviction: such settlements undermine Israel's security and the efforts to achieve a two-state...
...Judea and Samaria,'' says Joseph Ben-Shlomo, a leader of the right-wing settlers' movement Gush Emunim, ''you doubt the very justice of Israel's right to be.'' To further intimidate any doubters, Israel has for the past 21 years established what it calls ''facts on the ground,'' settlements that have changed the face of the West Bank and Gaza. Some 67,000 settlers have moved into well over 100 new compounds. The settlements are almost always built on high ground, in order to command the surrounding countryside, and part of the rationale for the settlements was that they increased...
...that have about them an aspect of grandiose self-destruction. ''Our choice,'' he says, ''is not between good and bad. That is easy. Our choice is between bad and worse. Israel cannot defend itself if half its population is the enemy. The Arabs understand that if there is no settlement, then there will be hell, for them and for us.'' This is the real danger, Harkabi believes: ''If an individual claims that he can live only provided that he sits on the shoulders of another individual, and further that he has the right to drive his fingernails into the other...
...sometimes harsh, at least on the question of what the Israelis have done in regard to the Arabs in the territories. And the conflict there, considered in light of Israel's history in the past decade -- the invasion of Lebanon, the de facto annexation of the territories through settlement by Israelis, many of whom are religious fundamentalists, the Pollard affair in which the Israeli government assigned an American Jew to spy on the U.S., the Israeli involvement in the Iran-contra enterprise -- has raised the question of whether Israel has lost its way. Israel's accomplishments have the prestige...
...challenges that will define the final years of her tenure--and the legacy she leaves for her successor. The other is even more daunting: making peace in the Middle East. Those who have spoken to her say her determination to seek a comprehensive settlement between Israel and the Palestinians is real. A senior Arab official says that on her trip to the region last month, Rice pledged to help set up a Palestinian state by the end of Bush's term. According to this same official, Bush phoned the Kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia to tell them Rice...