Demonization vs. Inclusion – Greed Modernized : From Blog Posts to Book 

The purpose of “Demonization vs. Inclusion – Greed Modernized” and these blog posts is to combine them into a published book entitled Safe Schools for Jewish Students: An Educator’s Guide to Preventing Antisemitism and Strengthening Belonging.

Go here for the full Table of Contents.

Chapter 5 – Demonization vs. Inclusion: Greed Modernized

“The amazing thing about antisemitism is that Jews can simultaneously be accused of being rich and of being poor, of being integrated and not integrated enough, and of being stateless and of having a state.”

—Douglas Murray, Douglas Murray: A Time of War, October 2, 2024

Greed Modernized

Settlements

There are legal and illegal settlements. Israel is accused of creating illegal settlements. The question is what qualifies as an illegal settlement?

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention

A part of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention was a response to the forced deportation and ethnic cleansing of Jews from occupied territory, and forbidding an occupying power from moving its citizens into occupied territory for the purpose of changing the demographics of the occupied territory.

The provision states:

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”

Illegal Settlements

Article 49 further states that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

If Israel were occupying the land, forcibly moving Palestinians into Israeli land while deporting Jewish Israelis into occupied territories, then the settlements as described under Article 49 would be illegal. But that isn’t happening.

Illegal Outposts

Israelis have not created settlements in Palestinian-administered regions of the West Bank, specifically Areas A or B. If any Israelis did do such a thing, the correct terminology is illegal outposts or unauthorized construction, not illegal settlement. Illegal settlement infers colonizing the region.

There are, however, instances where Jewish Israelis set up outposts in parts of Israeli-governed Area C, regions where the Israeli government has not yet allowed settlement construction to begin even though the land is under full Israeli authority. In those cases, Israel has destroyed the outposts.

How Calling Israelis Settlers is a Greed Stereotype

Though Arab Israelis and Palestinians live in the land designated as an Israeli-administered zone, Area C, only the Jewish Israelis are accused of making illegal settlements, settling in land legally authorized by Israel and according to the Oslo Peace accords.

By calling the law-abiding land development “illegal settlements,” the Jewish land developments falls under the trope of the greedy Jews or in this case, the Jews want all the land for themselves. It doesn’t matter that Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt for peace. It doesn’t matter that Israel gave Palestinians control over Gaza for peace. The stereotype of the greedy Jew persists. There are even pictures by media sources promoting this trope.

“Greater Israel” is a false portrayal of what Jews are seeking, portraying them as greedy. Imagine if the talking points were that the “Palestinian settlers in Gaza and Judea and Samaria are committing violent crimes against Israelis to colonize the Jewish ancestral homeland, stealing Jewish land to make Greater Palestine.”

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Author Biography of Safe Schools for Jewish Students

Ezra Barany, son of a Bronx father and a Dutch mother from Nazi-occupied Netherlands, loves riveting readers with Jewish thrillers. His first two books in The Torah Codes series were award-winning international bestsellers. In his free time, he has eye-opening discussions on the art of writing novels with his wife and book coach Beth Barany. A high school physics teacher, Ezra lives in Oakland with his beloved wife and two cats working on the next book. Ezra, not the cats.