Sun, there's lots of confusion about the settlements and settlers. IMO they are given far too much focus for no reason. There is an estimated 300,000 "settlers" but that comprises people who live in & around Jerusalem, in land that was originally meant for neither Israel or Palestine. It was to be an international zone until the Arab states attacked in 48 rearranging everything. Jordan has given up their claim to that land (which they occupied until 1967) and although Israel will cede some of it to Palestine (truly as a good will gesture, since it was never planned for Palestine in the first place), they will not give it all up.
That's why the 300,000 settlers is misleading. Not counting the average joes in these surburbs, the true settler population is more in the range of 70,000. A lot of focus for a very small population. These are the people deep into the West Bank and Gaza who have religious views of the land belonging to Israel.
Although much noise is made regarding Hebron settlers, Jews have constantly and peacefully lived in Hebron throughout the ages until the 1929 Hebron Massacre when Arab mobs killed 67 Jews and forced the rest out. That's why there's only a tiny population of Jews in Hebron now. Why we hear so much about Deir Yassin and nothing on Hebron Massacre... your guess is as good as mine.
So, why should Jews be kicked out of areas (other areas of West Bank too) where they've lived for centuries? Isn't that ethnic cleansing of the West Bank? I don't hear the Left calling for a Right of Return for the Jews to areas where they were kicked out from... nor for the 600,000 or so Jews kicked out of Arab countries in the 50's.
Anyways, back to the "settlers"... even they aren't as nuts as they are made out to be.
Quote:
74% of settlers would be willing to pick up & leave if given compensation from Israel.
Regarding illegal outposts, 66 percent of respondents said they should be dismantled.
When asked whether they would oppose the evacuation of settlements, 90 percent of respondents said they would not break the law in response to an order to evacuate settlements,
According to the Peace Now poll, 64 percent of settlers believe that the Israeli government has the authority to decide on evacuating the settlements (compared to 54 percent in the last survey), while 26 percent accept the rabbis' [I assume they mean settler rabbis here] authority to decide on the matter (down from 30 percent in the 2002 poll).
Just 14 percent of settlers say the rabbis represent their beliefs, while even fewer settlers (12 percent) said that the Yesha Council of Settlements represents their views
http://www.peacenow.org/PNintheN/haaretz29.html
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The settlers are not an obstacle to peace.
Contrast those poll results to these from Oct 03:
Quote:
44.6% of Palestinians say the goal of the intifadah is to get Israel out of the occupied tettitries.
43% say that the goal is to "liberate all of historic Palestine"
61.8% support "suicibe bombings against Israeli civilians".
http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2003/no49.pdf
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Not good.