Sunday’s decision by the Israeli government
to hand over full and sole authority to approve building plans of settlements
in the occupied West Bank to
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler
himself and a notorious religious ultranationalist, can only be interpreted as
a dangerous and alarming evolution, if not a mutation, in Israel’s encroachment
on what remains of West Bank territory.
اضافة اعلان
The implications of this decision, which
is at the heart of the coalition agreement that Benyamin Netanyahu had
committed to when he allied himself with Israel’s Far Right parties, will be
felt immediately.
Smotrich had insisted on being named as a minister in the
Defense Ministry last year, which allowed him to take over from the defense
minister all responsibilities pertaining to sanctioning the building of new
settlements in the West Bank.
Almost immediately,
Israel announced plans to build more than 4,500 additional units in the occupied West Bank in a
clear violation of earlier commitments made in Aqaba and Sharm El-Sheikh this
year. For starters, this means that
Smotrich can now approve and speed up the
building of settlements, especially in Area C, which constitutes at least 60
percent of the total area of the West Bank and is under
Israeli control as per
the Oslo Accords. Smotrich can decide, unilaterally, to impose Israeli law
there — the area has 400,000 illegal settlers and is home to more than 300,000
Palestinians. This will be a snap, direct, not to mention unlawful, annexation
of occupied Palestinian territories. Since 2000 Israel has re-occupied most of
the West Bank in direct violation of previous agreements and understandings
reached with the Palestinian Authority (PA) under US auspices.
To put this in perspective, by the end of
2022, the West Bank had about 199 settlements and 220 outposts, with more than
600,000 settlers residing, and as of 2021, the area of the
Israeli settlements was about 201.1sq.km., representing 3.6 percent of the total area of the West
Bank. The annexation of Area C will dwarf the current percentage.
The unconditional normalization of ties between Israel and Arab countries has emboldened Israeli governments and did not affect Israel’s land grab policy or the dispossessing the Palestinians.
Smotrich will also approve building new
Jew-only roads while erasing any legal distinctions between privately owned
Palestinian and state-owned lands. The pace of colonizing what remains of
Palestinian lands will accelerate at an unprecedented speed.
The move, which will surely be condemned
by the international community but will go ahead unhindered, renders the
two-state solution a relic and ends any realistic goal of creating a contiguous
Palestinian state in the future.
There are at least four indisputable
facts about
Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which is 56 years old: One:
Israel has never intended and will never carry out full withdrawal from the
West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which it already annexed, for several
reasons. Before the rise of the religious Far Right, secular parties put
forward several excuses for not withdrawing, such as safeguarding Israel’s
national security by controlling territories from the Mediterranean to the
Jordan River. Later, they cited the takeover by force by militant Hamas of the
Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority and claimed that such a scenario
could repeat itself in the West Bank.
Second, Israel’s annexation, through
settlement building, of the West Bank has been going on under various
Israeli governments and has never been a divisive issue for major parties and
coalitions. In fact, in September 1967, three months after Israel occupied the
West Bank, the Labor government allowed Jewish settlers to build a settlement
near Hebron known as Kfar Etzion. Many settlements began as military outposts
and later expanded and populated with “civilian” inhabitants. However, the
definition of civilian is controversial since most Israelis are required to
serve in the army and remain under call afterward as reservists. The roots of
Israel’s annexation intentions of major chunks of the West Bank after the 1967
occupation can be traced back to the Allon Plan, which proposed annexing East
Jerusalem, the Etzion bloc, and the Jordan Valley.
After the historic victory of the Likud
in 1977, the new government-sanctioned settlement in other parts of the West
Bank by radical organizations like Gush Emunim and the Jewish Agency. After
that, all successive
Israeli governments supported colonizing the West Bank,
especially in areas surrounding East Jerusalem.
Third, for this government and the
Israeli far-right in general, the Jewishness of the whole of historical
Palestine — and beyond in some cases — is an ideological tenet based on a
mixture of religious and ultranationalist beliefs. That is unlikely to change
anytime in the foreseeable future. The settlers have become an important voting
bloc that conservative and right-wing parties need in election cycles. So have
the cluster of small religious parties that support colonizing all occupied
territories and are changing the demographic makeup of Israeli society.
Fourth, while support for Palestinian
rights has picked up in Western countries, especially in universities and among
the youth, the reality is that
Israel’s influence in Western governments and
legislatures, especially in the US, Germany, and the UK, remains high and has
not been affected by its illegal settlement activities or its crimes against
the Palestinians. Furthermore, the unconditional normalization of ties between
Israel and Arab countries has emboldened Israeli governments and did not affect
Israel’s land grab policy or the dispossessing the Palestinians.
Israel will never cease and desist unless the US steps in forcibly and decisively, and that is a risk no American president, politician, or lawmaker is willing to take because of the huge influence the Israeli lobby has on American politics.
Israel will never cease and desist unless
the US steps in forcibly and decisively, and that is a risk no American
president, politician, or lawmaker is willing to take because of the huge
influence the
Israeli lobby has on American politics. Even then, it would
require the international community to do what seems an impossible feat; to
make Israel accountable for its documented, continuous, and defiant crimes and
violations. That has not happened yet and is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the only real obstacle standing in the way of Israel’s plan to carry
out its evil designs, which include erasing the Palestinian identity, is the
Palestinians themselves.
If the international community is unable
and unwilling to take
Israel head-on now, then the least it can do is support the
steadfastness of the Palestinians on their native land. Failing to do so makes
us all accomplices in a blatant ethnic cleansing crime!
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and
political commentator based in Amman.
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