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submitted 5 months ago by Silverseren@kbin.social to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

Mrs Weiss heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland. For decades, she has been kickstarting Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Some in the settler movement have cherished the dream - or pipedream - of returning to Gaza since 2005, when Israel ordered a unilateral pullout, 21 settlements were dismantled and about 9,000 settlers were evacuated by the army. (Reporting from Gaza at the time, I saw many who were literally dragged out.)

Many settlers saw all this as a betrayal by the state, and a strategic mistake.

Opinion polls suggest that most Israelis oppose resettling Gaza, and it is not government policy, but since the Hamas attacks on 7 October it is being talked about out loud - by some of the loudest and most extreme voices in Israel's government.

Mrs Weiss proudly shows me a map of the West Bank with pink dots indicating Jewish settlements. The dots are scattered all over the map, eating away at land where Palestinians hope - or hoped - to build their state.

There are about 700,000 Jewish settlers in these areas now and settler numbers are rising fast.

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[-] sndmn@lemmy.ca 85 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Taking land by force and displacing population is against the Geneva Conventions.

Settlers is an unusual name for war criminals.

[-] Gingerailed@kbin.social 20 points 5 months ago

But if the U.S. and Britain called their war criminals 'settlers', why can't anyone else? :O

[-] sndmn@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 months ago

Those do predate the Geneva conventions but otherwise are the same.

[-] Psychodelic@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

They could call it manifesto destiny

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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
249 points (93.7% liked)

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