There is no such thing as an ethical settler in the West Bank. As I’ve written before, and everybody should know by now, all settlements are illegal under international law.
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Despite this fact, Israelis are highly incentivized to move into settlements. Every year, each settler receives over 50 thousand dollars while benefiting from unique tax privileges and exemptions. They also receive benefits that are provided by six government ministries: the Ministry of Construction and Housing gives generous grants and loans for the purchase of residential spaces. The Israel Lands Administration gives extreme price reductions when leasing land. The Ministry of Education negates tuition fees and gives free transportation to school. The Ministry of Industry and Trade gives grants to investors. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs gives incentives for social workers. The Ministry of Finance gives reductions in income tax for individuals and companies.
In addition, settlers receive a 15-20 percent salary boost when moving into a settlement and gain government assistance for 75 percent of travel and 80 percent of home rental expenses. On top of these economic privileges, Israeli authorities also give settler security groups in the West Bank around 20 million shekels ($5 million) a year to monitor, report and restrict Palestinian construction in Area C. Israeli authorities recently asked to increase the state budget for Palestinian surveillance in the West Bank to 40 million shekels ($10 million). There are no clear statistics about what percentage of settlers move into the West Bank because of Zionist ideology versus the economic benefits alone, but the end result is the same either way; displacement and disenfranchisement of Palestinians.
The mentality of supremacy is a sociopathic mental disorder that seems to worsen with time. When a person lives in a country where non-Jews are considered not fully human — where specifically Palestinians are below animals — that changes the way that person’s brain works. Israel is without a doubt the most racist country in the world right now; the U.S. may be a close second. I know what it means to have privilege at the cost of others’ rights, because I am white. But the stark reality of apartheid and ongoing genocide is truly something else. Israeli citizens are incentivized to give up their humanity at every turn. They are brainwashed since birth to believe that god granted them a right to the land and that that necessitates the violent removal of Indigenous people. It is a familiar narrative.
It is devastating to observe how Zionist Jews co-opt the language of indigeneity in order justify the displacement, military control, and murder of Palestinians. They see Palestinians as the foreign occupiers and stretch or invent a historical lineage stemming from biblical times. They even claim ownership over places with no prior record of Jewish presence.
There are more than 3,300 archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank, which means there is an average of one site on every half kilometer. Tragically, the Palestinian Authority’s Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage has proved that more than 500 archaeological sites and more than 1,500 landmarks have been stolen and destroyed by Israelis. A Diakonia report estimated that Israel has excavated 980 archaeological sites in the West Bank since 1967. It is said that Israeli archaeologists are the only archaeologists in the world to use bulldozers. But the land remembers the true history: every time the European pine forests surrounding settlements catch fire (as they are prone to do), the exposed earth reveals ancient Palestinian-made terraces.
As is typical in areas along old trade routes, Palestine is multi-ethnic and contains descendants of many nations and cultures, including Jews. However, the Arab Jews who lived in Palestine for centuries among the Muslims and Christians were not and are not seen as equal by colonial European Zionists. Arab Jews’ connection to their roots nevertheless has provided a way for European Jews to claim those cultural practices and indigeneity. This is why traditional Arab foods are now seen as Israeli, even though the vast majority of current Israeli citizens are not from the region, and why traditional Palestinian clothing is becoming trendy in Israeli cities.
Pictured below is a young settler who has taken over private Palestinian land, has stolen livestock, and whose family gets unjust benefits from the Israeli state to enable and encourage his violence.
