As Netanyahu engages in yet another "go fuck-yourself" to the president of the United States, and continues his ethnic social engineering in East Jerusalem, an op-ed in Ha'aretz gives an insight into the forces he is coping with at home. Americans can be a little naive when it comes to many Israelis' view of the West Bank and the religious and tribal fundamentalism that courses through their discourse. But this op-ed in the liberal Ha'aretz highlights the kind of looking glass world many extreme Israelis and their Washington allies inhabit:

Once upon a time there was a black woman; her name was Rosa Parks. There were racially discriminating laws in the United States, but she continued to sit on the bus even when she was told to vacate her seat for a white person. She was arrested, which set off a process whose end saw the abolishment of racial segregation on American buses. How is it possible that one little black woman, a dressmaker by profession, could change history simply because she remained sitting? Her protest was stronger than any demonstration, op-ed piece or Knesset vote. She opted for the natural choice; that is why she was triumphant.

People get married and have children. The children need space. The children grow up and get married. The children need a house. That is known as life. No one has ever managed to stop it. But every time another evil person arises who plans to destroy us, he does not succeed. And he does not succeed in destroying life itself.

Yes, the settler is analogizing the seizure of other people's land, slow expulsion of much of the population, erection of massive walls to contain and police them ... as the equivalent of the fight against Jim Crow. But he's not done yet:

The freeze is an edict that the public cannot tolerate.

It is not democratic, nor is it humane. It hits hard at the pockets of law-abiding citizens and embitters their lives. But at its foundation, either intentionally or by accident, is pure and basic apartheid - it is forbidden for Jews to live in certain places. It is forbidden to build. It is forbidden to develop. And it doesn't matter what the reasons are...

Despite the fury and the insult, let's not turn to violence. There is a simple, natural solution that is full of life - continuing to build. That will perhaps embarrass the prime minister in front of U.S. President Barack Obama, but that's precisely the point. A person with a manual cement mixer in Samaria can change history. Sometimes the man in the field can be a lot stronger than the great leaders. Just like Rosa Parks.

What I notice in this op-ed is no reference at all to the Palestinians and their claims and their rights. To these settlers, Arabs are non-persons; they do not exist in their narrative so they are utterly invisible. There is no one to compromise with - just land promised by divine diktat, against which there is no appeal. Any Israeli government beholden to these people will be incapable of making peace on its own. Increasingly, it seems to me, NATO or US troops will have to intervene on the border to enforce a separation and an end to these settlements for good and all. ..

The isolation of the Gaza Strip actually goes back to the early 1990s, when Israel first implemented the system of 'closure' and fenced off the territory. But Israel's current tight control of the Gaza Strip dates back to the aftermath of the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006, and then Hamas' armed defeat of Fatah in the summer of 2007.

Thus even before the widespread targeting of civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military a year ago, the Gaza Strip had been subjected to what the Goldstone report described as "a systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation".

'Economy dismantled'

Since 2007, aid as a proportion of all imports into the Gaza Strip has increased eightfold. Workforce unemployment stands at around 40 per cent, with only seven per cent of factories operational. The weekly average for truckloads of goods entering Gaza is a quarter of the quantity in the first half of 2007.

Months before Operation Cast Lead, an aid agency report described how the blockade "is destroying public service infrastructure in Gaza" and "has effectively dismantled the economy".

Little wonder then that the World Health Organisation's mission to Gaza reported in May this year that "since 2006, the health effects of the blockade have included stagnating life expectancy, worsening infant and child mortality, and childhood stunting".

Israel has also maintained a tight control over Gaza's air space and territorial waters, the population registry, and movement between Gaza and the West Bank.

Political strategy

The second crucial context for Operation Cast Lead is the overarching political strategy behind Israel's collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza. For the humanitarian catastrophe documented in numerous reports by the UN and NGOs is not, of course, a 'natural disaster' but a deliberate, political policy.

....

One of Israel's main aims over the last few years has been to keep Hamas diplomatically and internationally isolated. Tzipi Livni, the then foreign minister, told a press conference a few days into Operation Cast Lead of how it was "important to keep Hamas from becoming a legitimate organisation" (a reason for Israel preferring not to extend a six-month truce).

Another key Israeli goal, evident in both the ongoing blockade as well as the brutal military assault of Operation Cast Lead, is to punish the civilian population in the hope of turning them against Hamas.

In early 2006, an advisor to Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli prime minister, said that "the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet" in order to pressure the elected Hamas-majority government.

In September 2007, Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported on the Israeli military's plans "to limit services to the civilian population in Gaza" in order "to compromise the ability of Hamas to govern". ...

Jewish settlers have sought to prevent building inspectors from enforcing recently announced limits on construction in the occupied West Bank.

Groups of settlers, who have vowed to ignore the curbs, gathered at the entrance to one settlement and said they had forced inspectors to leave.

A government official said there had been some "low level friction".

The Palestinians say Israel's 10-month building pause is not enough and are refusing to restart peace talks.

The building restrictions do not apply to East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want to locate the capital of their future state. ...

The house at the center of Tuesday’s flare-up is in Sheik Jarrah, a district just north of the Old City, where three Palestinian families have been evicted from other houses in the last year after losing a lengthy legal battle in the High Court and lower district and magistrates courts.

A Jewish association won its claim to historical ownership of the land in question, and has plans to build a large Jewish housing complex there. The Palestinians fear that the Jewish presence in Sheik Jarrah is part of a larger project to cement Israeli control of the eastern part of the city and to push Palestinian residents out.

The latest Jewish residents to move into the area were escorted by the police and private security guards and immediately removed furniture from the property, which was built by a Palestinian family headed by Refka al-Kurd, 87.

The small, one-story structure was built about 10 years ago as an extension of the Kurds’ original home, but it was unoccupied, having been sealed by the authorities after it was determined to have been constructed without the proper permits.

“The authorities took our keys to the property because we built it without permits,” said Nabil al-Kurd, 66, who lives in the original house. “But it seems the settlers can live here without permits because they are the sons of God,” he said bitterly, referring to the Jewish newcomers. ...