Some much seems to get lost in the fog of Israeli propaganda, lobbying, and the absolutely desperate willingness to throw that anti-semitic trope into every argument against Israeli extremist policy. So many are willing to talk about how filthy and evil and violent the Palestinians are, and yet so few pro Israel people seem to be willing to discuss the filthy, murderous Ultra Zionists, and the positively evil, land grabbing Settlers. Boys on the hills. Jewish assasins. Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. Since then, the Israeli government has built nearly 150 settlements that are home to well over 500,000 Jewish settlers. Many of the settlements resemble fully developed suburbs, with apartment blocks, shopping malls, parks and industrial zones. Radical settlers have established hundreds of additional outposts without government authorization, while still enjoying protection from the Israeli military and often other public services. Netanyahu’s government, the most nationalist and "religious" (JINO?) in Israel’s history, has boasted of establishing over 100 new settlements. On Thursday, as the army deployed in Qusra, members of his Cabinet celebrated the rebuilding of a settlement that had been dismantled in 2005 as part of the Gaza withdrawal. The Israeli police are overseen by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, himself a hard-line settler who has been convicted eight times for offenses that include supporting a terrorist organization. He was a defense attorney for Jewish extremists before entering politics. The Israeli military says the settlers’ actions in Qusra are “illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable,” and that it tries to maintain law and order in the West Bank. It says it dismantled two outposts in the area of Qusra and detained one Israeli. But rights groups say the military frequently turns a blind eye to settler violence, and that when it intervenes it often focuses on protecting the settlers. Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group, says around 94% of investigations into settler violence since 2005 have ended without an indictment, with just 3% leading to full or partial convictions. President Donald Trump rescinded the U.S. sanctions at the start of his second term and appointed Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements, as his ambassador. During his first term, Trump had upended decades of U.S. policy by moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem and supporting Israel’s claims to other territories seized in war. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-israel-has-done-so-little-to-rein-in-spiraling-settler-violence-against-palestinians/ One of the reasons why Israelis are some of the least popular people on the planet right now, Thailand included, is because of the way that Israelis are behaving back home. Between the IDF, the ultra Zionists, the Settlers and the extremist government, they're not doing a very good job of representing the positive face of humanity. Quite the opposite. That is not generating much in the way of goodwill, positive PR, or affection, despite all the very expensive propaganda to the contrary. Woe is Israel. Woe are the Israeli tourists. It's challenging enough traveling around the world these days as an American, can you imagine how difficult it would be traveling as an Israeli?
