I made the mistake of stumbling over this utterly hateful spew by Leon Wieseltier at TNR today. Some people just seem to start frothing at the mouth whenever they hear the word "settler." It's odd. Essays like this help to perpetuate the myth of the Israeli settler community as a monolithic bunch of wild-eyed fanatical and violent religious zealots. Whose agenda does that serve?
Anyway, nothing could be further from the truth, though there certainly are some settlers who fit that description. It never ceases to amaze me how desparate some Jews are to employ every device in their repetoire, including but certainly not limited to hyperbole and falsehood, to distance themselves from what is, by and large, a group of people like many others, but who live under constant threat, not only from Israel's enemies, but from their own government. Ah, well. One of life's mysteries.
Shabbat Shalom.
