The initial framing made me wince because I’ve heard it used so much lately to justify hatred and violence. To then go “but whatever you think the history of the land is, that doesn’t matter” feels radical, even if it shouldn’t be.
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My first exposure to this as a political issue was during the 2010 flotilla raid. I was at training for an interschool debate thing and some guy who is now a DA councillor (lol) was making all these archaeological arguments. Even 14 year-old me was like “how is this relevant? People were killed?”
Just a weird memory that stuck in my brain for some reason. What a time - university students teaching several dozen bemused teenagers about the Middle East/queer theory/utilitarianism every Sunday for three months. Cross-subsidised by private schools who didn’t really know what they were funding.
I don't really want to pass judgement on whether or not the PA should have accepted Olmert's terms, or something much like them 18 years ago, but it was obvious at the time that he would be the last of a particular generation of Israeli politicians who took peace and its details seriously.
Because I am old and I was in that world around that time, working for a Jewish peace group in Jerusalem, and I remember being very worried that everyone was very blasé about the potential for the Israeli right to radicalise very quickly and thoroughly.
Even then, though, I didn't worry enough, I shared the lazy assumption of many Israeli leftists that the security state as shitty as it was would continue to always stand apart from the settlers and force whatever PM came into office to focus on the interests of the state itself.
The real canary down the coal mine was that at around the exact time that Olmert was doing these things you started to hear these stories about how it became a career ender for IDF officers to take any enforcement steps against settlers, and how the settlers informally vetted new appointments
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