Settlement freeze what and where?

Israel  should, in my opinion, take every reasonable step possible to promote peace. But what is reasonable?

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The United States government has requested a "settlement freeze" in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) which it considers to be essential for peace, even though the Palestinians seem to have other concerns entirely, such as refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people  to self determination.  As everyone should know by now, Gush Etzion was settled by Jews beginning in 1927. The Gush Etzion bloc was ethnically cleansed of Jews by the Jordan Legion following a barbaric massacre in 1948, just as the state of Israel was created, during the  Israel War of Independence, and was resettled by Jews, including some of the original settlers,  in 1967. Even Jimmy Carter noted that Gush Etzion would probably never be given up by Israel. Does the US administration seriously intend that there will be no more houses built in Gush Etzion? No more babies born there? Should the babies be cast into the Nile or what?

 

Can we imagine, that Israel woud impose, as a condition for starting peace negotiations, that all the Arabs of Israel must stop having babies and stop building houses, or perhaps that only the illegal Palestinian settlers in the illegal Palestinian Arab settlement of Silwan, established after 1967, must stop having children?

 

Let's take this one step further. Ramat Eshkol is a neighborhood in Jerusalem. French Hill is another such neighborhood. The Jewish quarter of the Old City, Atarot and Neve Yaakov, the Hebrew University on Mt Scopus and the Jewish cemetery on Mt. Olives are all "Jewish" areas of Jerusalem, beyond the 1948 green line, which the United States consideres "settlements."  In 1948, during the Israel War of Independence, the Jordan legion conquered Jerusalem, putting all these areas off limits to Jews. The Jewish community of the Old City that had existed for hundreds of years, was ethnically cleansed (sorry - there is no other name for it) by the British officered Jordan Legion. The Jews of Atarot and Neve Yaakov were evacuated and the Hebrew University was off limits, behind enemy lines. The Mt. Olives cemetery was desecrated. Does Israel now have to stop building new buildings for the Hebrew University or new houses in Neve Ya'akov or Ramat Eshkol. If a family in Ramat Eshkol wants to add an extension to their apartment, do they need a permit from Hillary Clinton? My ancestors are buried in the Mt. Olives cemetery. If more people from our family die and want to be buried there, do they need permission from Hillary Clinton to die or to be buried?

 

Fresno Zionism explains the point further below.

 

Ami Isseroff

 

 

Why is Kfar Etzion illegal?

Fresno Zionism

News item:

US President Barack Obama, while saying for a second time on Monday that there was "positive movement" in Netanyahu's speech, called once again at a press conference in the White House, alongside visiting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for a "cessation of settlements."

"And there is a tendency to try to parse exactly what this means," Obama said, "but I think the parties on the ground understand that if you have a continuation of settlements that, in past agreements, have been categorized as illegal, that's going to be an impediment to progress."

Leave aside for now the famously accomplished speaker Barack Obama's sudden inability to distinguish between nouns and verbs, first apparent in his Cairo speech where he said that "It is time for these settlements to stop" — stop doing what? — and yet again when he calls for a "cessation of settlements" and opposes a "continuation" of them.

Let's go from the abstract to the concrete and talk about settlements.

Kfar Etzion is a 'settlement': it is east of the 1949 armistice line which is also called the 'Green Line'. Here is an excerpt from something I wrote about it last December ("No room for Jews"):

One of the places that the Palestinians do not wish to compromise on is Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, south of Jerusalem. Part of the Palestine Mandate from 1917 to 1948, and the Ottoman empire before that, it was purchased from local Arabs and settled by Yemenite Jews in 1927.  They lived there on and off (they were driven out several times by Arab riots) until 1948 when the invading Jordanian army overran it and executed all but four of its defenders. All of the West Bank and East Jerusalem were made Jew-free by the Jordanians, who illegally occupied the area until 1967, when the kibbutz was reestablished.

So what I am asking Obama to explain is exactly how is Kibbutz Kfar Etzion illegal?

Continued: Why is Kfar Etzion illegal?