Is all this really worth it? If it hadn’t been for the West Bank Jewish settlements, the occupation would have ended long ago. If not for the occupation, Israel's situation would have been a lot better. One can, of course, take exception with both assumptions, particularly the second one. The first requires no further proof. But anyone who does accept these propositions has to do some real soul-searching.



A lot of what happens to Israel, for the better but particularly for the worse — both in the international arena and on the domestic front, the country's image and its likeness — are the product of the settlements. They have determined its fate: The ostracism, denunciations, boycotts in the offing, and the apartheid state that has already existed here for some time. They are because of the settlements, as are some of the country's economic ills — in addition, of course, to the blood that has been shed.



That's a lot for such an out-of-the-way piece of land that most Israelis avoid. A large proportion of them have never visited there, and many others have no interest in the fate of its residents. A community is living on this piece of land, at least some of whom — the hard-core of the settlers — speak a different language. Their beliefs and culture are different, as are their laws and way of life. The thread connecting life in the settlement of Yitzhar and the upscale northern Tel Aviv neighborhood of Ramat Aviv is very thin, if it exists at all. Life in the settlement of Ofra is totally different from Haifa, as are the issues the residents of each face.



The ties between the two communities — the secular majority in the State of Israel and the messianic minority in the Land of the Settlements — are highly tenuous. Who living in Tel Aviv has a friend in the settlement of Itamar? And who in the settlement of Kiryat Arba has an acquaintance in Kiryat Shmona? And just look what a disaster we, the members of the majority community, have because of that insulated minority. Is it worth it? We must ask that question.



We need to ask if the continued existence of that messianic minority where it is currently situated — where it bases its control on divine and Biblical commandments that are so foreign to a large segment of the Israeli public — is so important and relevant to the secular majority that it is ready to carry that minority on its weary shoulders, and pay the price that is being demanded for it.



Is the relocation of the minority community (which is less than a tenth of the country's population) to within the country's sovereign borders such a major disaster in the eyes of the majority that it thinks it justifies the continuation of the current situation? Or instead, does the portent of disaster lie in their continuing to live where they do? After all, not many people still seriously believe that the existence of the settlement of Ariel protects the Israeli town of Carmiel, or that Ma'aleh Adumin defends Ma'aleh Hahamisha, or Ateret to Mevasseret. At last, some Israelis finally understand that the opposite is the case: more than providing a defense, the settlements pose a risk.



One can, of course, have a sense of solidarity with the residents of the settlements, the prospect of the eviction and expulsion of Jews. But even those who have that belief should honestly ask themselves: Didn't the settlers know up front that the future of their enterprise was mired in uncertainty, in questionable legality, let alone morality; that their land was cheap because it was stolen? The people who settled there, either out of burning faith or cold economic considerations, did so knowing that they were staking their futures on a risky proposition. Anyone who feels a sense of solidarity with them needs to also remember the settlers' misdeeds: The criminal violence of a minority of them, the burning of olive groves and the looting of sheep. And the settlement of land that did not belong to them, whether with or without the sponsorship of the state, which was no less violent.



When you read about the hundreds of millions of shekels that dozens of settlements did not pay, as the law required, to lease state land; when you hear how many of them were built on privately owned Palestinian land that was stolen; when you know how some of the settlements' residents behave toward their neighbors — one must ask: solidarity with them? Are you sure?



With the approach of the moment of truth, if it is approaching, these questions must occupy the attention of more Israelis. When boycott threats become real, when Israel is mentioned in the same breath as the most outcast of countries, every sane Israeli needs to ask himself whether all this is really worth it. For the settlements and the settlers?

Open gallery view A settler looks at the West bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim. Credit: AP