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The settlers’ one-state argument, or ploy

Apart from the small point that all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal according to international law and every single settler living there is ipso facto a law breaker–something the author conveniently omits to mention–this piece by Hagai Segal at Ynet is actually a round-about argument for a one-state solution:

the major harm to Jewish freedom of movement beyond the Green Line is only a tiny part of the overall harm to their basic rights. In fact, the Jews in Judea and Samaria are the only population group in the area still wholly subordinated to a military administration.

Since Oslo, most Palestinians enjoy civilian self-rule, yet 300,000 settlers cannot build a balcony without getting an IDF permit.

I somehow doubt, however, that Segal really wants to see equal treatment for all human beings, even Muslim and Christian human beings, in the West Bank. What we have here is an increasingly common, cynical ploy by settler advocates to mobilize and deploy the language of universal human rights and egalitarianism in order to advance a Jewish nationalist agenda. It is an inversion of the rhetoric used to speak out on behalf of Palestinian rights and humanity. Playing with the language of equal rights is a dangerous thing. If Hagai Segal doesn’t watch out, his kind of talk might erase the Green Line and advance the struggle for equal rights throughout historic Palestine.

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