Word: settler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...name only. Today two Palestinians were shot. I think the Hamas is accusing Israel of killing one by putting bombs in his car. The other guy was shot in the north of Gaza - the Israeli army accused him of trying to throw a hand grenade. An Israeli settler died an hour ago; he was wounded yesterday in Hebron. And another settler was killed last night in a shooting. Palestinian armed people shot them...
...fire leaves the initiative in the hands of the naysayers. Although the truce is surviving one day at a time despite a steady daily death toll in minor clashes, all it would take to rekindle the blaze would be one suicide bombing in a crowded Israeli marketplace, or one settler zealot emptying his weapon into a crowd of Palestinians. And that's a serious concern, since there are substantial militant constituencies on both sides who have no interest in seeing the cease-fire hold...
...flip side of that strategic coin are the settlers, who have little to gain and much to lose from a resumption of the peace process. After all, the basic premise of the peace process has been that the Israelis will withdraw from some or all of the West Bank and Gaza (depending on which side you listen to), and that prospect is fundamentally threatening to a settler movement whose principal objective has always been a permanent Israeli presence in those territories. The deal offered by Barak at Camp David last year would have ultimately involved Israel abandoning a significant number...
...Problems for Arafat But the cease-fire may be under more immediate threat, as Sharon faces a growing chorus of Israelis, led by the right-wing settler leadership in the West Bank and Gaza, demanding tough action in response to Friday's bombing, while Arafat's adherence to a cease-fire makes his own political position even more perilous. He has been forced, as he put it, "in the higher national interest" to essentially call off an intifada that has claimed almost 500 Palestinian lives without realizing any tangible gains. Indeed, on the weekend that he made his call...
...further construction at all in existing settlements, it's unlikely that a majority would support that. The Israelis are looking for a Peres-style sleight of hand that allows them to tell the Americans and Palestinians that there's some form of settlement freeze while telling Israelis, particularly the settlers and their supporters in the cabinet, that construction will continue and that this is in no way the first step towards abandoning the settlements. This is a government far more ideologically pro-settler than the previous one, even if the previous one was putting the future of settlements...