Livni Proposes Negotiations, Concessions To ‘Hilltop Youth’

She stressed the importance of strengthening the moderates among them.

Jerusalem, December 24 – The head of the Hatnuah Party, a member of the Opposition’s Zionist Union alliance, said this morning that the government should pursue a negotiated settlement with the extremist teens and young adults who glorify and commit violence against Palestinians, not seek to eliminate them.

In an interview with Kol Yisrael radio this morning, MK Tzipi Livni said that while it is important to condemn and act against any terrorism coming from the slice of the religious settlement movement known as the hilltop youth, it is just as important for Israel’s security that the hilltop youth be given an economic and diplomatic horizon, so that they see the benefits of a negotiated solution.

“I am under no illusions that we will cause them to love us,” she said. “But they are our partners. Continued violence and suppression cannot be the answer. We need to at least try to resolve our differences at the negotiating table.” Livni led the team of Israelis who negotiated a possible final status with PLO officials during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s previous term.

Hilltop youth, so called because they disproportionately populate unauthorized settlement outposts along the Judean and Samarian hills, have allegedly been involved in a substantial litany of violent crimes against Palestinians and their property. Usually such incidents involve cutting down olive trees or spraying anti-Arab graffiti, but occasionally they target people, such as in a fatal arson attack in the Palestinian village of Duma over the summer. At a wedding yesterday, a group of such youngsters were filmed dancing with knives and a Molotov cocktail, and stabbing a photo of the toddler killed in that attack. Mainstream Israeli society, including the formal religious Zionist leadership, condemns their behavior and distances itself, while opponents on the left claim the State acts with insufficient force against them for fear of alienating the politically important religious Zionist bloc. Livni stressed the importance of strengthening the moderates among the hilltop youth.

“We cannot simply paint everyone in that camp as hopelessly, irredeemably at war with us,” she insisted. “We must avoid tarring all hilltop youth with the same brush, since that will only drive the moderates into the arms of the extremists. We have to emphasize that our opposition is not to the hilltop youth per se, but only against those who engage in incitement and violence.”

“We can start by giving them something to lose,” she elaborated. “Desperation is what drives so many of these attacks, so if we enhance, for example, their economic development, we can show them it’s worth it to forswear violence.”

As a start, Livni suggested a goodwill gesture such as releasing the suspects in the Duma attack.