Israeli settlers have marauded across the occupied West Bank for months, attacking Palestinian towns and villages with impunity. Events in Qusra, a village south of Nablus, where Israeli settlers have laid siege to three Palestinian households since Sunday, have even led to a rare condemnation of settler behaviour by the Israeli government, with spokesperson David Mercer calling the settlers’ actions “deplorable” and “unacceptable”, and promising that Israeli authorities would investigate and arrest those responsible. Analysts, campaigners, and Israeli parliamentarians who spoke to Al Jazeera have reacted to that with disbelief and incredulity, pointing to the inability of the Israeli military to stop the siege, in which the settlers have cut off water and electricity to Qusra.
Israeli soldiers were initially even seen mingling and even praying with settlers in Qusra. It isn’t opposed to them. Supporting them is policy,” she added.
When there’s international criticism of the violence, the government condemns it, the settlers withdraw, and then return as soon as attention shifts.” “Let’s be clear, settler violence is state violence,” Dvir added. United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs monitoring shows settler violence to be increasing with every week that Israel’s October election – and the potential end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government – draws nearer. The Israeli government has done little to distance itself from the actions of the settlers.
Instead, prominent members of Netanyhu’s Likud party have attended high profile settlement conferences, including those explicitly focused on ethnically cleansing Gaza. Netanyahu himself responded to recent violence in the Palestinian village of Tal – which prompted the United Nations to warn that the entire West Bank was at “breaking point” – by promising to recognise even more illegal settlements. At the heart of government policy on settlements have been the polarising figures of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Smotrich has proven to be one of the most consequential Israeli politicians in history in promoting the cause of illegal settlements. As well as normalising political references to the annexation of the Palestinian territory, Smotrich made being granted partial administrative control over the occupied West Bank a key condition of his joining Netanyahu’s coalition. He has since overseen the expansion of illegal settlements at an unprecedented rate.
Smotrich has also boasted of making the two-state solution a practical impossibility with the announcement of the E1 settlement project, joining occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, in August of last year. However, focusing on just two of the coalition’s more controversial figures was to miss the point, Gordon argued.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
