I had to read Fred Barnes’ new Weekly Standard piece “In Defense of Settlers” a few times to be sure that Fred wasn’t actually putting us on. It appears he isn’t.

Things go awry beginning with the very first paragraph, in which Barnes writes, “When direct talks begin next week between Israelis and Palestinians, the fate of Jewish settlers in the West Bank — tens of thousands of them — will be a major issue in the negotiations. But the settlers themselves won’t be part of the discussion.”

Given that Netanyahu is still in the process of choosing his negotiating team, it remains to be seen whether actual settlers will be part of the discussion. But here’s an interesting fact: Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is himself a settler, living in the settlement of Nokdim, south of Bethlehem. While it’s highly unlikely that Lieberman will himself participate in the negotiations (Netanyahu wisely does his best to keep his racist former chief of staff away from decent society as much as possible), given the extreme rightist, pro-settlement orientation of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, it’s safe to say “the settlers” will very much be at the table.

Barnes goes on to channel the usual settler claims — which mirror Hamas’ claims — of a right to all of historic Palestine, as well as the canard that the West Bank is not “occupied” but rather “disputed,” which is a neat way of saying that, having lost 75% of their homeland, the Palestinians should now have to negotiate over the “disputed” remaining 25%.

Barnes notes that “a Jewish settlement has been established in the heart of Hebron.” He does not note, however, that Palestinians in Hebron are literally forced to live in cages to avoid harassment and violence by radical settlers, who live under the protection of Israeli troops and police. Nor does he note the extent to which that violence is underwritten by American “charities” like the Hebron Fund.

Things take a darker turn, however, when settler spokesman Dani Dayyan, commenting on the prospect of a Palestinian state, “raises the long-discarded idea that Jordan might become that state”:

Though its population is predominantly Palestinian, Jordan is a Hashemite kingdom. But if Hashemite rule were ended, “that would open a new horizon of possible solutions that don’t exist today,” Dayyan says. “That’s a thought for the future.” But not one that’s on the table in the Israeli-Palestinian talks to begin next week.

There are good reasons that this idea has been long discarded. Among them: The Palestinians don’t want it. The Jordanians don’t want it. There’s also the small detail that, in addition to being enormously difficult to carry out, involuntary population transfer is a crime against humanity. So don’t let’s think about it for the future, but let’s do let it be instructive as to how some Israelis (and Americans) think. Read more

Yesterday, I predicted that it was only a “matter of time” before an opportunistic lawmaker points to the tragic massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants on their way to the U.S. as yet another reason to “seal the border” and delay immigration reform. Unsurprisingly, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) stepped up to the plate on Fox News’ On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. However, McCain didn’t just use it as an opportunity to start fear-mongering about violence in Mexico hypothetically “spilling over,” he also called immigration and human rights activists “oblivious” for suggesting that “our border is more secure than ever”:

When they — this is the most cruel and brutal things that have happened in our hemisphere. And what I don’t get, Greta, is where are the immigration activists and the human rights activists and others that wouldn’t conclude that the way you stop this terrible situation — one of the ways is to secure our borders? Then this human trafficking dries up and people come to this country legally. But they don’t seem to get that. Where are the human rights activists with these terrible abuse taking place as we speak? [...]

And then [they] turn around and say, “Don’t worry, our border is more secure than ever,” is completely oblivious to what’s happening on the other side of the border and continues to happen in our own state. And the majority of the American people have it figured out. But frankly, apparently, some of these immigration groups, pro-immigration groups haven’t figured it out yet. Secure the border. Then we can address some of the other issues.

Watch it:

However, immigration activists aren’t just speculating when they suggest that the U.S. side of the border is safer than it’s been in years. The claim is actually based on hard data from the FBI and interviews with law enforcement officials. The FBI crime statistics show that as undocumented immigration has increased, crime in Arizona and other border states has gone down. Data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) additionally shows that the violent crime rate in Arizona has been declining since 2006 and in 2008 and is at the lowest level since 1973. Even property crime has plummeted in Arizona since 2002 and in 2008 and is at its lowest point since 1966. Clarence Dupnik, the border sheriff of Arizona’s Pima County, has stated, “I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure.”

Finally, immigration and human rights activists are very aware that human smuggling is a “human rights crisis.” Long before the bodies of 72 murdered migrants were found, Amnesty International decried “the alarming levels of abuse faced by the tens of thousands of Central American irregular migrants that every year attempt to reach the US by crossing Mexico.” On the ground, non-profit groups such as Border Angels and the Border Action Network work to provide relief to migrants and the border towns they pass through.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, immigration groups continue to fight for immigration reform that would have the effect of shuttering the human smuggling business by providing economic migrants with more opportunities to legally enter the U.S. when there are jobs available for them. Meanwhile, as Wonk Room noted yesterday, the enforcement-only approach that McCain pushes exacerbates the problems and hardships migrants face. The harder it is to cross the border, the more profitable the human smuggling business becomes. And as profits rise, so does violence in Latin America. McCain, however, insisted last night that he believes the border can be made airtight, citing Israel’s impeccable border security record — underestimating the persistent ingenuity of human smugglers and ignoring both the focus of Israeli border security efforts and the human rights violations associated with them.

Surely, McCain has access to all the information cited in this post — which means either he is the one who is oblivious or he is willfully deceiving the American public.