Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is reportedly in negotiations with settlers at several illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank, with a deal expected to legalize one of them in return for voluntarily leaving some other buildings.
Internationally speaking, of course, all settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, but some are doubly illegal in that they were also set up in violation of Israel’s notoriously pro-settler legal system.
In this case, the Havat Gilad outpost was set up by Kahanist settlers, and was on the list of settlements Israel promised the US it would eventually demolish. That plan seems to be close to being abandoned.
Instead, Ya’alon hopes to convince settlers to voluntarily leave four buildings in Area B, the part of the West Bank which the Palestinian Authority is supposed to control. In return they would look the other way on the broader settlement.
The US will be forced to issue a 'powerful statement' such as: 'This is not helpful to the Peace Process'.
This kind of incremental seizure of land worked quite well for the American white "settlers" back in the 19th Century, because there were relatively few native Indians on the land mass being seized. The white "settlers" outnumbered the Indians maybe 10 to 1 or more, and plus the Indians kept up their inter tribal warfare even as they lost on a broad front to the whites. Had the Indians outnumbered the white "settlers", fifty to one, as is the case in the Mid East, and had those Indians the sense to unite against a common enemy, and had those Indians had modern weapons, things might have turned out quite differently.
The Israelis should consider changing the designation of these land thieves from "settlers" to "cocky mumzers" – maybe that would be a closer truth, plus fair warning.