The girls, aged 14 to 16, have come for settler training to learn how to occupy Palestinian land — breaking international law. “God promised us this land and told us if you don’t take it, bad people will try and take it and you will have a war,” says Emuna Billa, 19, one of the camp supervisors. “Why do we have a war in Gaza? Because we don’t take Gaza.”

Their guru is Daniella Weiss, a 79-year-old grandmother in a long skirt and patterned headscarf. Founder of the Nachala or Homeland movement, she has been setting up illegal settlements for 49 years and was recently put under international sanctions. “You will be the new emissaries,” she tells the 50 or so girls at the camp. “I call it redeeming, not settling and this is our duty.”

She unfurls a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories dotted with vivid pink house symbols to represent existing and proposed Jewish settlements. Not only are these all across the West Bank, but also in Gaza. Already 674 people have signed up for beachside plots there, she tells me, and “many more want to join”. When someone asks her about settling Lebanon she smiles and says, “Yes, there too”.

  • febra@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    All settlers are terrorists. There are over 750k people living in the occupied territories. They need to gtfo asap. Their claims hold no water and there is absolutely no legal founding to creating little settler colonies on another people’s land. I’m talking about the West Bank and the other occupied territories here, not Israel proper.

      • febra@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 months ago

        Of course you’re German. Unsurprising. “Other historic ties to the land of Judea and Samaria”. Can’t get more crazy than that lol

          • febra@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            Yeah and so does Germany over vast areas of western Poland, yet you don’t see normal people claiming that Germany should invade, settle, and occupy those parts. Secondly, I’m part jewish and have no connection to Israel, and never will. The Zionist mission to look for Lebensraum in the West Bank will never have my support. Zionism doesn’t represent Judaism. If you think so, then you’re just another philosemitic antisemite, or someone delusional enough to think that supporting the mass slaughter of children will wash his family’s past crimes.

  • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    “God promised us this land and told us if you don’t take it, bad people will try and take it

    And that attitude right there is why there will most likely never be peace in the region.

    There are hard-line factions on both sides of the conflict who are convinced that their religion grants them a god-given right to exclusive occupation of the same piece of dirt.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      There are hard-line factions on both sides

      :-/

      You’re running into a degree of selection bias when you put “guy with gun seizing land” up against “group of residents who haven’t fled yet”.

      What does a moderate faction look like in this set up? Either the IDF backed settler doesn’t show up or the Palestinian leaves. These are your non-escalatory solutions.

      their religion grants them a god-given right to exclusive occupation

      Waving a gun in your face after I’ve kicked down your door, but you’re no better than me because you’re also religious.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    I’m not surprised. That’s what Israeli settlers doing for decades, not just since October.

    Tell me how people should not get radicalized, when your home and existence and that of your family is constantly threatened.

    I’m not condining the actions of Hamas, they are brutal and wrong. But Israel created that beast themselves and left Palestinians with no other options.

    If you want a more human focused instead of politics I would recommend to read Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation

    Jewish author Michael Chabon and Israeli born author Ayelet Waldman asked writers, journalists, authors of both sides and not involved at all, to visit the occupied territories and write an essey about their expierience. It shows a heartbreakingly personal point of view of the situation before the current war.

  • TWeaK@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    When someone asks her about settling Lebanon she smiles and says, “Yes, there too”.

    Great, more war crimes.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    The wild things is, they’re religious leaders know they are worshipping a co-opted war god, that exists only in their shadows.

    • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      They’re settlers. What they do is violently expel people from their homes in order to claim it for themselves.

      Settlers are people who do that.

      There’s no need to stop calling them the word that correctly describes what they do.

      • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 months ago

        Then are the people illegally coming to the US “settlers” or are they still refugees ?

        Because I’m confused on the difference with that definition.

        • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          3 months ago

          No. People coming to the us and integrating into American culture (even if it’s not recognized by the law) aren’t settlers.

          A person wrote a book about this called “settlers”. You can read it.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            Settlers is an accurate descriptor, the problem is generations of Americans have been taught a white washed version of America’s colonial history, so the term doesn’t hold the negative connotation that it should.

            To me it is more about messaging than accuracy. You can describe them accurately using different terms that average Americans immediately understand as negative.

          • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            3 months ago

            Settlers. The frontier means ‘place we can kill and steal from “them” for land and resources’.

            But that doesn’t undermine my question about refugees.

            Does context matter or not ? Because if it does not matter than the Palestinians fleeing death and destruction could be called settlers, too.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        3 months ago

        How about: invader, encroacher, intruder, illegal immigrant, trespasser, violator, infringer or conqueror?

        • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          3 months ago

          You don’t need to say any of that because they’re already settlers. They’re already all those things because that’s what a settler is.

          There is no need for another word.

          • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            3 months ago

            While you’re correct, the word is misunderstood by the general public. So it doesn’t properly convey its meaning

            • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              3 months ago

              Words don’t properly convey their own meaning.

              People do when they use them.

              Rather than lament the way you perceive the present understanding in absolutes, why not start using the word settlers appropriately: preceded a cuss or followed by spitting.

              If you think people don’t understand how the word settlers conveys historical meaning then do something about it instead of accepting your own transport to another grammatical space wherein you colonize the meaning and context of other words.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        I understand. My point is that, for whatever reason (likely generations of white washed education regarding America’s colonial history), people in the US don’t view the word “settler” with the contempt it deserves.

    • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      That’s what they are, even according to themselves they’re settlers. Perhaps a more accurate term might be settler-colonial but I think just settler works (when you stop glorifying America settlers it especially works.)

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    Wow Israel really thinks the world will go like “welp it is now a conflict between civilians so the Israeli government can’t be blamed”. I bet they are praying that locals organise a defense against these invader settlers so that they can pretend like they have a good excuse to send troops.

  • Deceptichum@quokk.au
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    Why aren’t these terrorist training camps being bombed?

    Israel is a terrorist state.

    • breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      MBFC

      Bias Rating: RIGHT-CENTER; Factual Reporting: HIGH; Country: United Kingdom; MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY)

      Wiki

      The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain’s quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as The New Observer. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK (formerly News International), which is owned by News Corp. Times Newspapers also publishes The Times.