There is no doubt that the writers of the Labor Party's platform have found a refreshing innovativeness in adding a new concept to the overburdened dictionary of the Israeli occupation: "the Hong Kong paradigm." The idea of leasing the Jewish settlement blocs from the Palestinians - the way Britain leased certain territories from China (in 1898) for 99 years (and not Hong Kong itself, which was a crown colony since 1841) - is a particularly successful idea: It is impossible to give any more fitting expression to the colonialist nature of the annexation of parts of the West than the example of the takeover by the British Empire (and with it France, Germany and Japan) of parts of the hapless Chinese Empire.
Indeed, the inventors of the Hong Kong paradigm identified the similarity: robber capitalism that operates under the auspices of military power against an impotent rival, the bullying takeover of land and water resources while displacing the natives, and making huge profits while exploiting patriotic sentiments and nationalist urges. The interests and the sentiments that impelled imperialism and colonialism in the latter part of the 19th century - which have become illegitimate, shunned and embarrassing now - live and thrive in Israel today, at the beginning of the 21st century. The authors of Labor's platform on affairs of state are not hesitating - peace-seeking doves that they are - to base themselves on Hong Kong, which was created in order to enable free trade in opium, as a "solution" for the settlement blocs.
Truly, the situation in those blocs does suit the colonial era. In a fascinating study, Dr. Gadi Algazi reveals the fascinating "story of colonial capitalism in Israel, 2005" - starring ultra-Orthodox businessmen, crooked land-dealers, collaborators, officers of the military administration, the drafters of the route of the separation fence, and the leaders of the settlers. This is "an unholy alliance between the state authorities that subsidize and promote the fences and the real estate companies and high-tech entrepreneurs, the old economy and the new economy."
This alliance determines the flexible boundaries of the "blocs," and based on "the consensus," these blocs are filling up and expanding. Thousands of housing units, some of them without permits, are being built on land that has been stolen from its Palestinian owners through criminal trickery, while the planners of the separation fence, who are very familiar with the real estate sharks' takeover maps, are taking care to include these lands inside the route of the fence. And they are not ashamed to claim afterward that the fence has been planned "in accordance with security considerations."
The continued conflicts between the Palestinian inhabitants of the villages where their lands have been stolen - and above all the village of Bil'in that has become a symbol - and the security forces are not receiving the attention they deserve, because their struggle is perceived in the broad political context of opposition to the fence, and not as protest against the theft of their lands and the creation of the "bloc." In Algazi's summation, "This is a structural characteristic of the colonial frontier. The wild settlement affords real estate opportunities and huge profits at the expense of the human environment and the natural environment of the place."
"The peace camp," for the most part, has given up the struggle against the evils that are entailed in the establishment of the settlement blocs. If United States President George W. Bush has recognized the demand to annex them, what is the point of fighting over their future? All that is necessary is to invent some alibi like "the Hong Kong paradigm." The peace camp's struggle is directed only against the "ideological" settlers, the outpost fanatics and "the hilltop youth," whereas the inhabitants of the urban blocs, the seekers of quality of life, ostensibly have nothing to do with this conflict.
Indeed, a great many of the inhabitants of the "blocs" really are victims of the occupation, not its perpetrators or its perpetuators. The population that is growing at the most rapid rate in the settlement blocs is the ultra-Orthodox population. The towns of Upper Modi'in (Kiryat Sefer) and Upper Betar are growing at an astonishing rate, and the number of their inhabitants comes to about 60,000 - nearly one-quarter of the total number of settlers in the territories.
Poor ultra-Orthodox families that have many children and lack housing have come to the "blocs" having no alternative, and their leaders have defined themselves as "cannon fodder." There, in territories that have been stolen from the Palestinian villages, homes are built for them that have been sold at subsidized prices, and employment solutions and living conditions the likes of which are not to be found in Israel have been provided for them.
The heads of the Yesha Council (Yesha is the settlers' acronym for the territories of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, which also means "salvation" in Hebrew) relate to these forced settlers as a human shield: "Even if they don't come here for ideological reasons, they will not give up their homes so easily," says Pinhas Wallerstein cynically, posing a challenge to those who are appalled by the continuation of the acts of thievery. Hiding behind Hong Kong tricks, or "settlement blocs", does not solve anything, as the complication has long not been territorial but rather structural and comprehensive.
