About 15 years ago, Idith Zertal and my fellow Al-Monitor columnist Akiva Eldar wrote “Lords of the Land.” In their in-depth book they investigated the settlement enterprise and showed how the settlers receive preferential treatment over the rest of the nation, delineating the perks and privileges they enjoy. Today the situation is even worse. The prime minister and political leaders are simply afraid of the settlers.
There were two dramatic events this past week: another evacuation of the Amona outpost in the West Bank (evacuated by court order in February 2017) and the arrest of Jewish teenagers on suspicion of terrorism. These events and their fallout show that the State of Israel has become the land of the settlers, and its elected leaders their servants.