Youths' abduction stirs Israeli sympathy for settlers
Politicians from both the right and the left are sympathizing with the families of the abducted youths in an unusual wave of empathy from the Israeli public toward the settlers at this moment of national distress.
An Israeli government minister who paid a visit this week to the family of one of the abducted West Bank teens told Al-Monitor that he can’t remember seeing such a wave of support for the settlers in years. A leader of the settler movement who accompanied the minister on his visit agreed, adding that the abduction of the three teens on June 12 has resulted in such widespread expressions of sympathy and support that he doesn't remember anything like it in the past.
The minister even expressed his concern that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might actually exploit the past few days' outpouring of support to even expand further the settlement enterprise in the occupied territories.
For years, there has been a separation between Israel within (west of) the Green Line and Israel beyond (east of) it. This line divided Israeli politics into left and right. Ever since the Six Day War, the dialogue within Israeli society has revolved around this division between Israel within the Green Line and the Greater Israel after the war.
Throughout the first and second intifadas, there were many voices in the public discourse blaming the settlers for the series of terrorist attacks in Israel. The left regarded the settlements as an obstacle to peace; the right regarded them as an obstacle to war. On the left, authors, intellectuals, pundits and politicians took the position that Israel’s very domination of the territories was the main cause of Palestinian violence. For many Israelis, life beyond the Green Line was like living in another country. Time after time, surveys confirmed that most Israelis had never set foot in the territories and that many of them had never actually seen a settlement up close.
