Steve Lendman blog February 23 2013
They violate international law. They prioritize land theft. They prevent peace. On January 31, the UN International Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory condemned them for good reason.
They deny Palestinian self-determination. They comprise “part of an overall pattern of (Israeli) breaches.”
They benefit Jews exclusively. They institutionalize racist segregation, inequality, dispossession, and occupation harshness.
The UN Mission wants them halted without preconditions. It called for “immediately initiat(ing) a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT.”
It wants companies and governments to “assess the human rights impact of their activities.”
It wants them to “cease all connections to settlements.” It wants decades of Israeli lawlessness ended.
The David Project (DP) “shapes campus opinion on Israel by educating, training, and empowering student leaders to be thoughtful, strategic and persuasive advocates.”
They do so for what they should condemn. Their programs operate in more than 130 Jewish high schools and middle schools.
David Bernstein is executive director. “We have moved from a more frontal approach to advocacy to a more relational” one, he said.
“We believe relationships make the world go round.”
“We educate and empower students in both the content and the skills necessary to form a robust network of relationships on campus, and teach and guide them in leveraging those relationships to raise understanding and support for Israel.”
“We also have moved from addressing problems wherever they appear (there are 4000 institutions of higher learning in this country alone!) to a more focused approach in which we pick our spots carefully, knowing that to be all things to all people means that you are not going to be very effective at any one place.”
Its “Understanding The Settlements: A Primer” addresses the growing controversy. It goes “beyond headlines and sound bites,” it claims.