told JNS<\/a><\/span>. \u201cThe security establishment views the arrival of dozens of activists as an act intended solely to provoke, which undermines the harvesting process.\u201d<\/p>\nLander is Jewish, but he is no friend of Israel. He has accused the country of \u201cgenocide\u201d and has called Israel\u2019s occupation of the West Bank \u201ca crime under international law.\u201d These claims are lies designed to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state in the eyes of the world.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Lander said he was visiting to help Arab farmers harvest olives \u201cin the face of state-sanctioned settler terrorism\u201d and to \u201cshed a light on the reality of the occupation.\u201d If anyone thinks this group wasn\u2019t there to foment trouble for the Israelis, I\u2019ve got a bridge to sell you.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult to discover what truly happens in many of these incidents, so an open mind is necessary. There is indeed a problem of Jewish attacks on Arabs that have not been stopped; they are disgraceful, and the Israelis need to shut them down.<\/p>\n
But there can be no justification for Western media and politicians failing to acknowledge this Arab terrorist war being waged against Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria. Such radically skewed reporting has turned half a million overwhelmingly upstanding and besieged Jews into enemies of humanity\u2014just as Israel has been treated in its war against Iran.<\/p>\n
However, in addition to failing to deal adequately with the problem of delinquent \u201chilltop youth\u201d or the provocateurs, the Israelis themselves hardly ever mention this Arab onslaught in Judea and Samaria.<\/p>\n
There are various possible reasons for this. First, the degree of truth in the \u201csettler violence\u201d claims puts them on the back foot.<\/p>\n
Second, they are under huge pressure over this from the Trump administration and don\u2019t want to irritate it further by introducing the inconvenient complexity of Jewish victimization.<\/p>\n
Third, among the Israeli top brass, there are some who even now hanker for a \u201ctwo-state solution\u201d and view the settlers as the obstacle.<\/p>\n
Last, but not least, the Israelis want to brush this issue away as of no real consequence. As ever, they dismiss Western public opinion as irredeemably hateful toward the Jewish people and so think myopically that trying to appease it is a waste of time.<\/p>\n
They believe that they have more urgent issues to deal with, including the renewed threats from Iran, Gaza and Lebanon. They also fear that a third and even more terrible intifada is being plotted by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, along with the Palestinian Authority\u2019s force of 60,000 armed men.<\/p>\n
If that fearsome threat were to be realized, the combination of Western malice toward the \u201csettlers\u201d and Israel\u2019s negligence in how it presents itself to the world means that once again, the Jews of Israel would be blamed for their own destruction.<\/p>\n
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London<\/strong>, her new book, “<\/em>Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege,”has just been published by Wicked Son.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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