let the building recommence

COMMENT

Yesterday the moratorium on building Israeli settlements on the West Bank ran out, and even before midnight people were busy hacking out foundations for their new homes.

I heard an Israeli house builder on the radio saying:
"Everyone has the right to build his home where he pleases"
Well, no actually. He can't come and build one in my back garden because it's mine and I don't want him to. But that doesn't work in the occupied territories. The land is Palestine, but the Israelis don't care about that. It seems they regard the Palestinians as irrelevant. It says it belongs to the Jewish people in the Bible, and that marks the end of the argument as far as they're concerned. And as for human rights for the Palestinian people? Turns out that isn't relevant either, because the Jews don't really, in their hearts, believe they are human- remember the rabbi who only a couple of weeks ago publicly called on God to bring down a plague on the Palestinians and basically do away with them all? Is this the prevailing view of ordinary Israeli citizens? I'll be in a position to answer this for myself quite soon. Watch this blog...