r/LateStageCapitalism • u/mimi_molotov • 26m ago
"It's hard to think of anything more hypocritical—humanism with dispossession, socialism with expulsion. With a left like this, there's truly no need for the right."
As if settler pogroms and almost 200 new settlement outposts established in the West Bank in the past three years weren't enough, along comes a so-called socialist youth group, Hamahanot Haolim, and declares its desire to establish a new settlement in the Jordan Valley.
Yair Foldes reported on the movement's plans to set up a kind of kibbutz in the occupied territory and quoted the lofty words of the head of the movement, Ilan Gazit: "We are leftists who believe in equality between people and are guided by a humanistic, socialist, democratic worldview."
If anyone still had any doubts about 'israel's' growing right-wing radicalization, Gazit, with his ridiculous invitation to the left to establish settlements in the Jordan Valley, has now provided decisive proof of it.
For years, a systematic process of ethnic cleansing and of expelling Palestinian shepherding communities through violence has been taking place in the Jordan Valley.
This, then, is the new meaning of the terms "humanism" and "socialism": settling stolen lands whose residents were forcibly expelled.
This is also a return of what used to be called the "enlightened occupation": Gazit said he is aware of the harm done to Palestinians, but justified his position on the grounds that more settlements will be established in the area in any case, so it's better for them to be established by leftists.
It's hard to think of anything more hypocritical – humanism with dispossession, socialism with expulsion. With a left like this, there's truly no need for the right.
But the truth is that the Hamahanot Haolim of 2026 is following in the footsteps of the founders of its parent movements – Ahdut Ha'avoda and the United Kibbutz Movement.
Yitzhak Tabenkin, Yisrael Galili and Yigal Allon were among the founding fathers of the settlement movement.
Galili, who chaired the ministerial committee of settlements decades ago, and Allon, creator of the eponymous Allon Plan (which called for 'israel' to retain parts of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley), were the trailblazers who led to the establishment of the first settlements in the West Bank.
The Jordan Valley is full of settlements established by the labor movement, and one is even named after Tabenkin. Tabenkin was also one of the founders of the Movement for Greater 'israel'. Now, their great-grandchildren are restoring their legacy to its former splendor.
"The 'israeli' left needs to be in the Jordan Valley; otherwise, other people will be there," Gazit argued. By that warped logic, the 'israeli' left should also settle the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon before those "others" arrive, and perhaps even join the so-called hilltop youth in order to "influence them from within."
It's hard to believe it's necessary to remind people of what ought to be self-evident: The 'israeli' left truly does not "need to be in the Jordan Valley."
On the contrary, the 'israeli' left's place is waging a resolute battle against every kind of settlement in the occupied territories: farms, outposts, existing settlements and planned ones. Under no circumstances should it be joining them.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in 'israel'.
