There is someone I know who considers herself as a rightest. One time I was washing pottery with her and another guy, both Americans who made Aliyah many years back, and they were telling me about the horrors that happen in the West Bank, Gaza included. It was very uncomfortable for me because they seemed to view Hamas and the PA as one entity (if only it were that simple) and that all Isreali tax money is largely spent on sending resources to Gaza. Moreover, they were telling me that the people in Gaza do not have any food problems but were treated really badly by Hamas. To them Hamas also has control in the West Bank and those in the West Bank are all suppressed by Hamas. Person A, the rightest lady, is also convinced that it is impossible for anyone who supports Zionism to be against settlements. i.e. Anyone who supports the state of Israel should also support settlements. To take it further, Person A, believes that those who argue for Palestinian human rights is simply a cover up for anti-semitism, which I find to be extremely uncomfortable topic to even begin discussing with her. While I do understand that someone do argue that anti-semitism often comes up in the argument of Israeli and Palestinian rights, I don’t believe that it should be even a topic of debate in the issue. Once you drag in prejudices into arguments like these, the whole discussion takes on a emotive tone. It is never a question of whether either side should have rights or not. The question should just be a ‘how’.
-Yvonne