"Most of the Gush (Emunim) leaders truly believed that a fruitful coexistence on the West Bank was possible and that the local popuulation would enjoy and benefit from their presence. There was, they argued, plenty of room on the West Bank for Jews and Arabs alike, and since the Arabs had always lived under brutal and inhumane foreign domination, they would appreciate the humanity of the Jews, the real owners of the land.
"The fly in the ointment was the fact that the local Arabs had never been consulted about this concept of "benevolent" coexstence. Nor did they know or care about the Torah concept of "alien resident." The West Bank Arabs conisdered the Israeli takeover as a forced occupation, pure and simple. By occupying the area the Israelis had expanded upon the injustice they committed in 1948, when they established the State of Isreael on the ruins of Palestine...
"....conflict between the settlers and the local Arabs did not emerge immediately. As long as Jewish settlers were relatively few and they settled mostly outside the densely populated areas, Arab animosity could be contained and the myth of coexistence maintained."
from The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right, pgs 88-89.
I like Sprinzak's research and would reccomend this book to anyone studying any sort of politics... it's much better than most I've seen covering the histories of either radical grassroots or resistance movements, but I still have to point out that the perspective seems slightly uneven. (pro-Israeli) Just the same, it's brilliantly researched, and you can't please everyone, so rock on with Sprinzak's bad self!
Sprinzak, Ehud. The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right. New York. Oxford University Press, 1991.
"The fly in the ointment was the fact that the local Arabs had never been consulted about this concept of "benevolent" coexstence. Nor did they know or care about the Torah concept of "alien resident." The West Bank Arabs conisdered the Israeli takeover as a forced occupation, pure and simple. By occupying the area the Israelis had expanded upon the injustice they committed in 1948, when they established the State of Isreael on the ruins of Palestine...
"....conflict between the settlers and the local Arabs did not emerge immediately. As long as Jewish settlers were relatively few and they settled mostly outside the densely populated areas, Arab animosity could be contained and the myth of coexistence maintained."
from The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right, pgs 88-89.
I like Sprinzak's research and would reccomend this book to anyone studying any sort of politics... it's much better than most I've seen covering the histories of either radical grassroots or resistance movements, but I still have to point out that the perspective seems slightly uneven. (pro-Israeli) Just the same, it's brilliantly researched, and you can't please everyone, so rock on with Sprinzak's bad self!
Sprinzak, Ehud. The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right. New York. Oxford University Press, 1991.
[Edited on Jan 15, 2004 1:36PM]