After Jordan Valley Murder Will PM Netanyahu Truly Give Zionist Response To Terror - Settlements?

by Aaron Lerner


Historically, settlements were considered the "Zionist response to terror."

A look at the map of modern Israel finds it sprinkled with the names of settlements named in memory of the victims of various Arab attacks.

Today's terrorists are popular folk heroes in Palestinian society. The cost to the Palestinians of terror, in the form of restrictions on movement and commerce, may be painful, but the pain is temporary in nature. Large terrorist attacks may postpone what the Palestinians see as the ongoing capitulation of Israel either at the negotiating table or via unilateral withdrawals, but, again, these are temporary setbacks.

Terrorist attacks may, in fact, be viewed in the long run by the Palestinians as serving their interests by softening Israel's resolve.

Less than a month ago Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded to the murder of Sgt. Gabriel Kobi in Hebron by ordering the immediate resettlement of Beit Hamachpela, a Jewish owned building near the West Bank city’s Tomb of Patriarchs which was previously boarded up by order of the Defense Ministry.

PM Netanyahu declared that "Those who attempt to uproot us from the city of our forefathers will achieve the opposite effect. We will continue on one hand to fight terror and to harm terrorists and on the other hand to strengthen settlements."

But shortly after the news cycle winded down on the incident it turned out that PM Netanyahu's "order" notwithstanding, the actual return of Jews to the Jewish owned building remains mired in a web of legal processes with no clear end.

The latest murder of an Israeli in the northern Jordan Valley provides Mr. Netanyahu the opportunity to truly return to the "Zionist response to terror."

That means having the Defense Minister sign all the paperwork needed for something tangible to be built somewhere immediately.

That's "immediately" - not another step in a series of bureaucratic steps but all the steps.

What pending projects fit this description? There are people only a phone call away with the answer to that.

It should be made clear that the murder of Israelis leads to new settlement construction.

Sure, the Palestinians won't be pleased to learn that settlement construction is taking place in the memory of the man murdered, but will the murderers still be the same heroes they expected to be if their action leads to the building of yet more Jewish homes?

The "Zionist response to terror" has another benefit. Besides deterring Arab terror, it would serve to bolster the morale of the Israeli public by offering it a positive emotional outlet through which to respond to Arab terror. By establishing living memorials, Israel would be effectively saying: "We are on the map. Terror will not vanquish."

It is said that the Arabs decided to make peace with Israel when they came to the conclusion that they could not destroy the Jewish State on the battlefield. By the same token, settlement activity today may very well convince the Palestinians that they must compromise now or face the prospects of a considerably worse deal in the future.


Aaron Lerner

Source: http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=62060

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