Response

I reacted very strongly to the attitudes of the Israeli settlers in the video. Specifically, they struck me as being delusional. One woman spoke about the settlers having no hate in their hearts and how the problem was completely dependent on spiteful Palestinians. Another man mentioned the Israeli's right to the land by virtue of ancient history and tradition.

The woman's point galled me because she must have engaged in some willful act of ignorance to believe a statement like that. I recently read an article in the Economist that described the mutual antagonism between Palestinian farmers and Israeli settlers, who have taken to destroying Palestinian olive groves near their settlements. If the government targets terrorists, I can at least see where they're coming from. When citizens begin destroying one another's livelihoods, however, I have a harder time keeping quiet.

Equally frustrating was the man's assertion that the Israeli's have a greater right to the land by virtue of biblical history. His point is so fallacious it hurts. By the same logic, the descendants of Hammurabi would be able to stake a valid claim to southern Iraq and Kuwait.