Mrs Weiss heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland. For decades, she has been kickstarting Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Some in the settler movement have cherished the dream - or pipedream - of returning to Gaza since 2005, when Israel ordered a unilateral pullout, 21 settlements were dismantled and about 9,000 settlers were evacuated by the army. (Reporting from Gaza at the time, I saw many who were literally dragged out.)

Many settlers saw all this as a betrayal by the state, and a strategic mistake. Opinion polls suggest that most Israelis oppose resettling Gaza, and it is not government policy, but since the Hamas attacks on 7 October it is being talked about out loud - by some of the loudest and most extreme voices in Israel’s government. Mrs Weiss proudly shows me a map of the West Bank with pink dots indicating Jewish settlements. The dots are scattered all over the map, eating away at land where Palestinians hope - or hoped - to build their state. There are about 700,000 Jewish settlers in these areas now and settler numbers are rising fast.

  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The tone deafness is astounding. “Never again,” said Israel, “unless they are subhuman, then go for it.”