Word: settlers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...building. Hamas is certainly more than happy to encourage a grass-roots challenge to the negotiation policy of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the form of protests in Jerusalem - and many leaders in Abbas' own Fatah movement, equally tired of waiting for diplomacy to deliver, are joining in. Settler groups on the Israeli side, too, are likely to up the ante. So even if the Administration manages to get "proximity talks" back on track, the battle for Jerusalem is likely to intensify...
...with the Biden visit having highlighted differences over Jerusalem, the issue can't be easily fudged. Even if Netanyahu quietly undertakes to refrain from new construction in East Jerusalem, the move would not go unnoticed for long - and would prompt right-wing demonstrations and agitation. The right-wing settler movement is well entrenched in the government bureaucracy responsible for settlement construction, and precedent suggests they would find a way to continue building regardless even of any secret promises to the U.S. by Netanyahu. "Everything in East Jerusalem is under a magnifying glass and involves too many people and politics...
...borders as the basis for negotiation, and accepting East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. But Israel's political median has moved steadily to the right since the days of Rabin, and the minimum demands acceptable to Palestinian moderates are deemed too much for the Israelis. The militant settlers who believe they have a God-given right to build their homes in the occupied territories are now part of the mainstream, disproportionately represented in the army's mid-level officer corps, and an important support base of the Netanyahu government. Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is himself a settler...
...historic basin surrounding the Old City." The plan, he says, involves "the take-over of the public domain and Palestinian private property ... accelerated planning and approval of projects, and the establishment of a network of a series of parks and sites steeped in and serving up exclusionary, fundamentalist settler ideology." In its essence, the plan places a large area of Arab Jerusalem under Jewish control. "It risks transforming a manageable, soluble political conflict into an intractable religious war," he warns. For their part, many religious Israelis defend Elad's efforts to unearth their buried heritage. "For us, and for anyone...
...excavations in Jerusalem are overseen by the IAA, and its director, ex-General Shuka Dorfman explained to TIME that while Elad manages and funds more than a dozen digs around Jerusalem, an IAA archaeologist is always on-site to analyze findings. Dorfman concedes that the settler organization's interpretation of its findings in Silwan "is different from ours." He adds: "They emphasize only the Jewish heritage." Sometimes, according to archaeologist Mizrahi, the Elad-sponsored digs ignore other strata of Jerusalem's multi-cultural history. "They're only focusing on one tradition - the Jewish one," he says...