Mr Benn decided to do a little soul searching on behalf of the "settlers", totalling up all the ways in which the "settlers" have failed. Mr. Benn's first conclusion is:
"The first failure was in achieving the ultimate goal. The settlers did not succeed in attracting enough Jews to the hilltops of Samaria and cliffs of Judea to establish irreversible facts on the ground and prevent return of the territories."
By your own criteria Mr. Benn in its first 60 years as a state has failed miserably in achieving any of its vaunted aspirations!
Israel's first failure was its inability to bring enough Jews to Israel to settle the land! Vast tracks on the Negev, the Galil and even the coastal plain are unsettled by Jews, and as nature abhors a vacuum, gradually taken over by Bedouin and Arabs with or more often without proven ownership. Instead of attracting Jews to Israel, Israel seems to be a net exporter of dissolutioned Jews seeking safer greener pastures abroad.
"The second failure was in the settlers' disengagement from the public, through their sense of superiority over the hedonists from the center of the country. Even during the days of the British Mandate, which the settlers like to recall with longing, only a few people joined the "wall and stockade" settlements (which were established overnight in the country's peripheral areas), and the majority remained in Tel Aviv."
The second failure was Israel's failure to educate their youth and inculcate in them a sense of national mission and an appreciation of what it means to live as a Jew in the Land of Israel. Instead of imbuing in their youth a sense of wonder over their opportunity to realize the aspirations of generations of Jews who dreamt of living Jewish lives in the Land of Israel, they created a pale imitation of Western Materialism where representatives of this country abroad embarrass the Jews who live there with their total ignorance of Jewish tradition and practice.
"The third failure was security related. The settlements did not bring quiet, and when the war broke out, they proved to be irrelevant. "
The third failure was Israel's utter failure to provide a safe place for Jews to live - our "place under the sun". Instead of a growing rapprochement between the State of Israel and its non-Jewish neighbor's, there is every indication of a growing radicalization in the open hatred and animosity, not to mention concrete threat to our safety and existence. Israel is a place where Arabs walk without fear (in the same streets where Jews are regular blown to bits by suicide bombers), yet sane Jews would never walk through many an Arab village, sometimes even villages within the sacrosanct "Green Line".
So Mr. Benn, I think you should read your article again. As I read it, by your own criteria, the State of Israel is an abysmal failure at everything its founders set out to accomplish. Maybe you should draw some conclusions as well.
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