"Hilltop 26"

I've been reading stories of peace activism in Israel/Palestine. In general they are good for my soul. This one here is especially nice (post 1, and 2; via). Some Israeli and Palestinian peaceniks get together. They find an illegal outpost built by settlers, and start building their own illegal structure next to it. In come the settlers, and the army, and down goes the activists' outpost. Meanwhile the adjacent, illegal, settlers' outpost is left untouched. Similarly, some of the activists are arrested (though this was a non-violent protest--on the part of the peace activists, if not the settlers and soldiers):

Their crime? Not obeying the ‘closed military order’. The settlers were also guilty of this crime but that did not wind them up in jail for six hours.

This action strikes me as damn near a work of art. At any rate, it's worth several thousand words about the relation between the settler movement and the rule of law. And when an Israeli politician talks about freezing the building of new settlements, ignore the words, and focus instead on the soldiers ensuring that settlers have the freedom to build new settlements. (Not to mention the talk of allowing "natural" growth of the settlements--a contradiction in terms.)