Mondoweiss, August 10, 2015
Netanyahu vows to expand the settlements during a 2015 campaign stop at Har Homa.
According to this view, the settlers have violated the 1967 borders, the settlers are stealing Palestinian land, the settlers are engaged in violence and “price tag” attacks against Palestinians. The settlers are preventing peace.
[...] While Ben Gurion’s forces ethnically cleansed Palestine, enacted the Absentees Laws to confiscate the refugees’ property, and shot those who attempted to return, the hand was blamed for Deir Yassin, Tantura and other relatively minor crimes. [...]
Blame the Hand proved itself a useful ploy once again with the murder of 18 months old Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabshe by settlers who set his family’s house on fire. It allows the Israeli government to present itself as a “moderate” that denounces violence, an arbiter in a conflict between extremist settlers and extremist Palestinians.
