| Since October 7, 2023, the eyes of the world have been focused on Gaza, as genocide is being carried out and daily broadcasted. Yet, the West Bank has also been experiencing dramatic events that must be recognized. In particular, Israeli settlers have utilized the situation to escalate their attacks on Palestinian communities and implement their program. They are benefiting not only from diverted attention, but also from the anger and the desire for revenge within Israeli society and the loosening of restrictions by Israeli authorities unleashed in the aftermath of Oct. 7. They have also noted the international tolerance of certain tactics and methods of operation in Gaza and now urge similar tactics in the West Bank, even though there is no organized Hamas military confrontation in the West Bank. There are no forces to be neutralized, no tunnels to be destroyed, no hostages to be rescued, and no justifications (however spurious they may have been) for any of the bloody tactics deployed in Gaza. To the contrary, the ferocity of the genocidal attacks in Gaza has led most Palestinians in the West Bank to lay low and refrain from almost any form of resistance, in order not to give Israel any excuse to turn its wrath upon them. This has not helped them, however. Israeli forces began by closing off all Palestinian towns and villages, introducing hundreds of additional road blocks and enforcing a ban on Palestinian laborers coming into Israel. Pressure was placed on Palestinian Authority policemen to crack down on all Fatah militants or Hamas activists. For settlers, this was viewed as a golden opportunity, and they significantly increased their attacks on Palestinians with the support of and under the protection of the army. Pogroms, like those in Huwwara, became almost daily occurrences, and the number of Palestinian casualties rose. Most significantly, a new form of settlement expansion has become very common: the shepherding settlement. Instead of starting a small settlement outpost and slowly expanding it as caravans turn into cottages while slowly building up infrastructure, a single settler can now set up a cottage, bring a number of farm animals, sheep or cattle, and start grazing them in large areas around his new “home,” aggressively driving out Palestinian farmers, shepherds, and others. In this way, the settler can claim huge tracts of land without bothering with many of the convoluted legal tricks used to strip Palestinians of their land. Mere thuggery and intimidation by a small number of activist settlers, backed by the power of the state and its army, quickly uproot and scare away Palestinian farmers from large areas of the West Bank. With the support of Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, they are quickly depopulating most of Area C and are encroaching on Area B as well. Since October 2023, around 29 Palestinian communities have been totally depopulated, forced to leave their homes through outright thuggery rather than legal manipulations. Another new phenomenon is the destruction of refugee camps, starting in the North of the West Bank. Openly announcing the use of Gaza tactics, including drones, aircraft, tanks, and armored bulldozers, Israeli forces have attacked three camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams. Tanks and armored bulldozers destroyed the streets and infrastructure, the people were forced to leave and the buildings were systematically demolished. 40,000 people were rendered homeless, and the Israeli army announced they will not be allowed to return to their homes at all. It seems such “Gaza tactics” will be used with all the refugee camps in the West Bank. Together with the outlawing of UNRWA as a so-called “terrorist organization” the Israeli Right hopes that this will eliminate the “refugee problem” and with it the Palestinian Right of Return. It is interesting that the reasoning here is announced not in security terms but ideological one, with the declared hope being that by eliminating UNRWA and physically destroying refugee camps, somehow the “refugee problem” will be solved. They believe Palestinians will find individual lives elsewhere and Israel will realize the Zionist goal of creating a Jewish state, sans those troublesome Arabs who inhabit the land. The whole concept seems laughable–akin to taping over the red oil light in a car instead of fixing the problem. It is worrisome that there are those who think this can be done, that the Palestinian problem will somehow be solved this way. The danger is that in this current season of Purim—with the revival of the genocidal teachings about the Amalik and the demonization of Hamas and Palestinians in general as irremediably evil and “hell bent on killing Jews” and therefore a legitimate target for massacre and genocide—such thinking suddenly becomes plausible. I am certainly worried that, in the coming few days, we may yet see new massacres against Palestinians. Baruch Goldstein committed his Hebron massacre on Purim, and he was crowned a “tzedeek” (saint) by his followers. Those extremists are now no longer marginalized in Israel, but they are part of the government. They command legitimacy in Israel as well as the position and tools to carry out such pogroms against Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. I sincerely hope I am wrong. |
