Yossi Schwartz ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 04.11.2023
In an article in Jerusalem Post aimed at providing Biden with a story he can use to Justify the attacks of the Zionist apartheid state on the West-Bank and to prevent putting Israel from standing a trial in the International Criminal Court some facts are exposed.
This year is the bloodiest in the last twenty years. Settlers are firing with rifles to attack Palestinians harvesting olives in order to force them to leave their lands. The settlers are in most attacks protected by the army that has killed Palestinians and detained more than 1500 Palestinians in the almost a month since the beginning of the war on Gaza. While the armed settlers are described by Israel to be civilians as a matter of fact, they are soldiers without uniforms that commit crimes that the army claims that were not committed by the Israeli army itself that has killed more than 100 Palestinians in the West-Bank during the war on Gaza. Since Oct. 7, Israel also suspended the permits that some 140,000 West Bank Palestinians rely on to work.
“The past three weeks have also seen more than 100 incidents of violence toward Palestinians by Israeli settlers, according to the Israeli legal rights group Yesh Din, which said more than 800 West Bank Palestinians have been forced from their homes during that period” [1]
“The spike in West Bank violence has led to differing and at times contradictory responses from Israeli officials. One lawmaker in the country’s right-wing government has called for “a Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ’48,” while another far-right lawmaker was recently appointed to head a subcommittee focusing on the West Bank. The army is also planning to train and arm residents of Orthodox settlements without army experience to guard their settlements, according to a report Thursday in Haaretz” [2]
The hypocrite Betty Ilovici, the media and foreign affairs adviser for war Minister Yoav Gallant, specking for Biden and his assistants told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency “We absolutely condemn any form of violence, whether it is against Jews or Palestinian civilians” [3]
“That posture has come as the violence and string of evictions has increased. A Haaretz report said that in one instance, several Palestinians were stripped and tortured by soldiers and settlers. And in recent days, human rights groups have reported that two communities in the South Hebron Hills were evacuated following continued harassment from Israeli settlers. According to Comet-ME, an Israeli-Palestinian organization providing basic energy and clean-water services to Palestinians living off the grid in the West Bank, since Oct. 7 there have been 12 reported incidents of vandalism on energy and water infrastructure” [4]
“Palestinian herding communities and farmers throughout Area C are being forced off their land and forcibly transferred into the enclaves of area A and B,” said activist Yehuda Shaul, co-director of the human rights organization Ofek, referring to farmers being forced from Israeli-governed areas into Palestinian-run districts. Shaul said the number of Palestinians displaced during the first three weeks of the war is approaching the 1,100 who were displaced in all of 2022″ [5]
“Palestinian farmers are particularly vulnerable at this time, during the annual olive harvest season, because if they are unable to pick their olives they will lose a year’s income,” reads a recent statement signed by 30 Israeli human rights organizations urging the international community to intervene and stop the eviction of the Palestinians from their land. Adding to the peril to the area’s economy is the status of 140,000 Palestinians who have had their Israeli work permit suspended. For the past three weeks, following Hamas’ Oct. 7. [6]
For a Palestine Red and Free from the River to the Sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-771494
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid