Ori Nir writes:

In April 1988, as a reporter for Haaretz, I attended the funeral of a 15-year-old West Bank settler, Tirza Porat, who was accidentally shot to death by a fellow settler. Ms. Porat was participating in a hike of teens from a settlement near the city of Nablus when, following a confrontation with Palestinian rock throwers in a nearby village, a young settler opened fire, mistakenly killing Ms. Porat.

At her funeral, settler leaders called for revenge. One scrawny settler, sitting on a big rock a few yards behind where I stood, repeatedly chanted, “Geirush! Geirush!” (Expulsion!) in a heavy American accent. Later, after the crowd dispersed, the settler told me he had recently emigrated from New York and that his dream was removing the Arabs from the Promised Land.

His chant has been resounding in my ears as I’ve followed the latest cycle of violence in the West Bank.

Last week, two Palestinian terrorists killed four Israelis and injured four others near the Eli settlement, escalating monthslong violence between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank. The next day, some 400 settlers descended on several Palestinian villages, including Turmus Aya, a prosperous town near Ramallah, where reportedly they torched cars and homes. The attack follows others this year, which as The Times noted in February, has marked “one of the most intense episodes of settler-led violence in memory.” Since January, there have been more than 440 settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

Indeed, it seems ever more clear to me that ultranationalist West Bank settlers today are pursuing the same objective espoused by that American settler in 1988: to drive Palestinians out. They are undoubtedly feeling emboldened by the new Israeli government — the most pro-settlement and anti-Palestinian to date — possibly even believing their apparent dream of wedging out their Palestinian neighbors is now official state policy. Geirush Now!

It is not hard to see how we arrived here. [Continue reading…]