The girls, aged 14 to 16, have come for settler training to learn how to occupy Palestinian land — breaking international law. “God promised us this land and told us if you don’t take it, bad people will try and take it and you will have a war,” says Emuna Billa, 19, one of the camp supervisors. “Why do we have a war in Gaza? Because we don’t take Gaza.”

Their guru is Daniella Weiss, a 79-year-old grandmother in a long skirt and patterned headscarf. Founder of the Nachala or Homeland movement, she has been setting up illegal settlements for 49 years and was recently put under international sanctions. “You will be the new emissaries,” she tells the 50 or so girls at the camp. “I call it redeeming, not settling and this is our duty.”

She unfurls a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories dotted with vivid pink house symbols to represent existing and proposed Jewish settlements. Not only are these all across the West Bank, but also in Gaza. Already 674 people have signed up for beachside plots there, she tells me, and “many more want to join”. When someone asks her about settling Lebanon she smiles and says, “Yes, there too”.

  • febra@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    All settlers are terrorists. There are over 750k people living in the occupied territories. They need to gtfo asap. Their claims hold no water and there is absolutely no legal foundation to creating little settler colonies on another people’s land. I’m talking about the West Bank and the other occupied territories here, not Israel proper.

      • febra@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Of course you’re German. Unsurprising. “Other historic ties to the land of Judea and Samaria”. Can’t get more crazy than that lol

          • febra@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Yeah and so does Germany over vast areas of western Poland, yet you don’t see normal people claiming that Germany should invade, settle, and occupy those parts. Secondly, I’m part jewish and have no connection to Israel, and never will. The Zionist mission to look for Lebensraum in the West Bank will never have my support. Zionism doesn’t represent Judaism. If you think so, then you’re just another philosemitic antisemite, or someone delusional enough to think that supporting the mass slaughter of children will wash his family’s past crimes.

              • filister@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                And where Palestinians should go. Shall they magically disappear to leave more Lebensraum for Israel? Or what’s your solution?

                  • filister@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    Last time I checked Israel was actively trying to annex parts of the land that was supposed to be part of the future Palestinian state, not to mention that they are building various checkpoints and restricting basic human rights of those people. How would you feel if you were treated like this? Shall we also start talking about the impunity with which those settlers are evicting Palestinians from their land, uprooting trees, etc?

                    Or the fact that Israel can arrest, kill Palestinians at will without any formal investigation or Palestinians having access to a proper legal defence? You know if you constantly kick a dog, no matter how good this dog is, it will finally bite you. So don’t act surprised when that happens.

                  • febra@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    “Obvious solution”

                    Says the guy that was literally trying to tell me earlier that Israel has a legitimate claim to the West Bank. Where would that second state be? I say we give a part of Germany so Palestinians can create their state and not stand in the way of the apartheid state with a biblical right to other people’s lands.

              • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Palestinians don’t accept that the borders change and still want all of Israel.

                “Palestinians” here is a useless generalization, because it lacks a quantifier. Certainly some do, and just as certainly not all do.