Max Blumenthal reporting for Mondoweiss from the occupied Palestinian territories:
JERUSALEM — I just spent the evening in a small park overlooking occupied East Jerusalem at a gathering of the Israeli settlement movement's most prominent figures. The settlers were there to cheer three of their leaders who would be presented with the Irving Moskowitz Prize for Zionism. Few of the ultra-religious attendees seemed aware that Moskowitz is a California casino baron who exploits cheap Mexican labor to fund the proliferation of radical settlements in the West Bank. None seemed to care. The fulfillment of Greater Israel, an ethnically cleansed Jewish homeland, was paramount.
"This is the future of Israel," Kiryat Arba founder Noam Arnon flatly remarked to me. "We won't let the Arabs and their propaganda network CNN confuse anyone into thinking anything else."
The settlers were confident that the Israeli army, and by extension, the Israeli government, remains firmly on their side. "We're brothers, we're the same people," one young settler from Gush Etzion told me of his community's relationship with the IDF. "Of course they are on our side."
Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure Uzi Landau, a central cabinet figure, sat in the front row throughout the ceremony. Afterwards he told my reporting partner Jesse Rosenfeld that the land of Israel belong to Jews, therefore settlements could never be dismantled. Can anything Benjamin Netanyahu says to Barack Obama about the settlements be taken seriously? The dozens of settlers I spoke to certainly did not think so.
The Moskowitz Prize ceremony was held next to Silwan, a thriving Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where residents are currently confronting the Israeli government's plan to forcibly demolish 86 of their homes in order to build an archeological park. Last week, I met Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights in front of a Silwan home that was recently demolished. Rabbi Ascherman told me the demolition order raises the question of whether Israel values rocks more than human beings. Fakhri abu Diab, one of the 1500 residents who will be forced into the streets by Israel's home demolitions, told me he avoids discussing with his children the impending destruction of their home because he has no means of allaying their fears.
Despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's criticism of the demolitions, Israel has already bulldozed two homes. The survival of the remaining homes depends entirely on international pressure. See Silwan and the unfolding nightmare of Bibi's Greater Israel in my two part video doc here and here. And look out for video this week from the Moskowitz Awards.
