Israel Matzav

Even a broken clock is right twice a day: +972 names its person of the year

In 2012, the game became reality: The settlers are the new ruling elite of Israel.

According to all the polls, Israelis will elect an unprecedented number of Members of Knesset (MKs) from far-right parties, even as Likud’s relative moderates have been ousted and replaced by settlers and ex-settlers with radical political agendas.

A settler was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2012, while a former justice declared that the West Bank was not actually occupied territory.

Israel’s fourth estate, too, is partly “occupied” by the settlers. This year, Shlomo Ben-Zvi, a far-right publisher and settler who owns the frankly nationalist daily Makor Rishon, bought Maariv – one of Israel’s three veteran daily newspapers. While Maariv took a right-of-center editorial line in recent years, for decades it was Yedioth Ahronoth’s chief competitor for the title of Israel’s most mainstream daily newspaper.

Throughout the year, over and over, settler violence – price tag attacks on Palestinian property, unprovoked violence against Palestinians, even flat-out murder – has gone unpunished. Worse, it rarely elicits public condemnation or even, except for a few high-profile incidents, extensive media coverage.

The settlers have influenced the national narrative to the point that politicians who talk about peace, the two-state solution and negotiations risk becoming irrelevant.

For all these reasons, +972 Magazine has chosen The Settler as its Person of the Year for 2012.

Labels: Israeli Left, Judea and Samaria, Moshe Feiglin, Naftali Bennett, revenants

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:33 PM