{"id":251380,"date":"2024-01-01T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=251380"},"modified":"2023-12-27T06:56:53","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T06:56:53","slug":"in-the-west-bank-i-saw-how-peace-will-require-confrontation-with-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/01\/in-the-west-bank-i-saw-how-peace-will-require-confrontation-with-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"In the West Bank, I Saw How Peace Will Require Confrontation with Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Villagers of Zanuta dismantle their houses and pack their belongings before leaving on 30 Oct. Since 7 Oct, violence from Israeli settlers in the West Bank has increased dramatically, with some Palestinian communities deciding to abandon their villages. (Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)<\/p><\/div>\n

16 Dec 2023 – <\/em>Ekram Quran stands on the roof of her house on the edge of Al-Bireh in the West Bank, pointing to the hill 100 yards away where she used to roam as a girl among fig and olive trees. \u201cIt was a place to breathe,\u201d she remembers. Now, what she sees is a barbwire fence and, beyond, arrayed along the hilltop, the buildings of an Israeli settlement called Psagot.<\/p>\n

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Four Israeli soldiers arrive about five minutes after we descend from the roof. They demand to see Quran\u2019s papers and mine, for \u201csecurity.\u201d After checking our names, they return the documents and retreat to their post at the settlement gate. We were lucky. Quran says that late last month, a 20-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed<\/a> on the street next to her house during a demonstration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt is injustice,\u201d Quran says when the soldiers are gone. Her family built this home in 1961. The Israelis began constructing their settlement 20 years later, after they seized the West Bank in the 1967 war. Today, she is powerless on her own property, which lies in a sliver of what is known as Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank that is under total Israeli control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The devastating war in Gaza was happening just 50 miles away as we spoke. But Quran, like most West Bank Palestinians I met over the past week, doesn\u2019t speak much about the violence. They are angry but also frightened. Quran runs a graphic design business in Ramallah. She wants to keep working and survive. Her tone isn\u2019t militant rage but, rather, a sorrow verging on despair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For three days this past week, I traveled the West Bank, from the arid hills below Hebron in the south to the chalky heights of Nablus in the north. What I saw was a pattern of Israeli domination and occasional abuse that makes daily life a humiliation for many Palestinians \u2014 and could obstruct the peaceful future that Israelis and Palestinians both say they want.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Driving the roads of the West Bank is \u2014 forgive the term \u2014 a \u201ctwo-plate\u201d solution. Israeli settlers with yellow license plates zoom along on a well-guarded superhighway called Route 60. Palestinians with white plates navigate small, bumpy roads. Since Oct. 7, many of the entrances to their villages have often been closed. Traveling in an Israeli taxi with a Palestinian driver, I saw some of both worlds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An Israeli checkpoint along Route 60, visible from the kitchen of a house in Al-Aroub refugee camp in the West Bank on Nov. 21. (Salwan Georges\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I watched backups at Israeli checkpoints near Bethlehem and Nablus that were over a half-mile long and could require waits of more than two hours. The delays, indignities and outright assaults on Palestinians have become a grim routine. \u201cIf I\u2019m in a yellow-plate car, does that change my blood?\u201d asked Samer Shalabi, the Palestinian who was my guide in the Nablus area.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My tour of the West Bank was a reality check about what\u2019s possible \u201cthe day after\u201d the Gaza war<\/a> ends. President Biden<\/a> and other world leaders speak hopefully about creating a Palestinian state once Hamas<\/a> is defeated. I\u2019d love to see that happen, too. But people need to get real about the obstacles that are in front of our eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the ground, amid the grinding daily pressure of Israeli occupation, the shared hope for a Palestinian state can seem like a fairy tale \u2014 soothing to hear but a version of magical thinking. Standing in the way are the Israeli settlements and outposts laid across the hilltops of the West Bank, their high fences and concrete walls symbolizing their apparent immovability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe settlements were put there to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state,\u201d argued Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who is perhaps the country\u2019s leading critic of the settler movement. He offered a guided tour of settlement issues for me and two State Department officials Monday, explaining the patchwork of the West Bank from the heights of Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s how the math would work for the \u201cde-occupation\u201d that Seidemann says would be necessary for a viable Palestinian state. More than 700,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, and at least 200,000 would have to leave, he estimates. Some settlers would resist. \u201cThere is a significant possibility of a civil war between the state of Israel and the settler state of Judea and Samaria,\u201d he warned, using the settlers\u2019 biblical terms for the areas of the West Bank.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf it\u2019s not painful, it won\u2019t be significant,\u201d Seidemann concluded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lipstadt: \u2018Antisemitism is like a virus for which there is no cure\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"The<\/p>\n

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The pieces are falling into place to conclude the Gaza war<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"What<\/p>\n

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What I\u2019ll be praying for this Christmas<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Gaza<\/p>\n

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Gaza and Ukraine are very different wars, but they teach similar lessons <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n

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The Gaza war inches toward the day before \u2018the day after\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Christmas<\/p>\n

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Christmas is canceled in the land of Jesus\u2019 birth<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Where<\/p>\n

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Where is the outrage over Israel\u2019s killing of journalists in Gaza?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Netanyahu<\/p>\n

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Netanyahu is picking a fight with Israel\u2019s best friend: Joe Biden<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Biden<\/p>\n

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Biden can go over Netanyahu\u2019s head<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the West Bank, I saw how peace will require confrontation with Israel<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Cheering<\/p>\n

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Cheering Hamas on campus, too uneducated to grasp how grotesque that is<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Just<\/p>\n

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Just as 9\/11 altered America, so has Oct. 7 altered Israel<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Biden\u2019s<\/p>\n

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Biden\u2019s Gaza policy is the latest major U.S. foreign affairs blunder<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"American<\/p>\n

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American progressives should advocate for Palestine. Why aren\u2019t they?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Don\u2019t<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t learn the wrong lessons from the Israel-Hamas hostage deal<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Israel\u2019s war against Hamas is just, but it must be fought justly <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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For settlers, obstructing Palestinian statehood is part of the mission, Yehuda Shaul, a leading Israeli expert on settlements, told me. He noted that back in 1980, Matityahu Drobles, who was then head of the World Zionist Organization\u2019s settlements department, stated his goal bluntly in a broad plan. \u201cBeing cut off by Jewish settlements, the minority [Arab] population will find it difficult to form a territorial and political continuity,\u201d he wrote at the time<\/a>. \u201cThe best and most effective way of removing every shadow of a doubt about our intention to hold on to Judea and Samaria forever is by speeding up the settlement momentum in these territories.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Biden is the latest president to confront the reality that addressing the Palestinian issue means confronting Israel \u2014 especially over settlements. The number of official settlements and unrecognized but pervasive \u201coutposts\u201d keeps growing. A group called Peace Now says this year marked the biggest increase<\/a> since the group started tracking settlements in 2012.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And in recent years, there has been a frightening increase in violence by settlers against Palestinians, in what human rights advocates say are deliberate efforts to frighten them off land that the settlers believe God gave to Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Settler violence has surged since Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7 terrorist assault, which killed approximately 1,200 Israelis. Since then, there have been 343 settler attacks against Palestinians, according to<\/a> the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At least 143 Palestinian households, with 1,026 people (including 396 children), have been displaced by violence. Settlers have killed eight Palestinians and injured 85, the U.N. organization says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The violent settlers almost always go unpunished. From 2005 to 2022, 93 percent of the 1,597 investigations opened by the Israeli police into cases where Israelis were said to have harmed Palestinians were closed without indictment, according to<\/a> Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din; only about 3 percent led to convictions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The threat to Palestinians is especially severe in Area C, where Israelis outnumber Palestinians by more than 400,000 to 300,000. The Israeli military severely restricts travel by Palestinians there, and settlers regularly attack villages and Bedouin camps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A last word about settlements before I describe details of my trip. I have some close Israeli friends who live in settlements, and they are decent, principled people. Many of them would probably move if the Israeli government decided that a two-state solution required it. The violence comes from extremist settlers \u2014 and the danger is that they seem to have support from members of the Netanyahu government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One sign that the Biden administration might be taking the settlement issue more seriously was the announcement this month<\/a> that settlers believed to have been involved in violent attacks against Palestinians may be denied visas to enter the United States, along with their family members. That\u2019s not a solution to this big problem, but it\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Let\u2019s begin our tour at the southern edge of the West Bank, in the dry hills south of Hebron. Israeli settlements have expanded in this region. A new wrinkle here is the fight over \u201cherding outposts,\u201d where Israeli farmers have tried to drive off Bedouin shepherds who have been grazing this land for a century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saleh Abu Awad, one of those Bedouin shepherds, met me Monday by the side of a rocky field sprouting with green shoots in the mild December weather. He is thin, with a weathered face and trim beard, and was wearing a dusty sweatshirt emblazoned with a faded Emporio Armani logo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saleh Abu Awad, a Bedouin herder attacked by settlers in July.
\n(David Ignatius\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Nearby is the Israeli settlement of Meitarim, along Route 317, and an outpost known as Asa\u2019el. You can watch a video<\/a> in which an Israeli family at Asa\u2019el celebrates the joys of farming this land, with children doing cartwheels on bales of hay.<\/p>\n

A haggard Abu Awad said that on July 13, he was attacked by settlers while he was grazing his sheep. \u201cThis is our land. You should not be here,\u201d one of the settlers told him. Abu Awad told me his family has been grazing its sheep nearby since the time of his great-grandfather. But the settlers were intent. Abu Awad said a group came back later and burned six of his tents and drove off 130 of his sheep, which he estimates were worth nearly $50,000.<\/p>\n

Abu Awad didn\u2019t bother complaining to the Palestinian Authority. \u201cThey don\u2019t have any power,\u201d he said. The settlers have continued raids in the area<\/a>. I\u2019ve watched nearly a dozen instances of harassment captured on videos by Palestinian activists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In this area, known as Masafer Yatta, settlers have forcibly displaced the residents of a number of entire communities since Oct. 7, according to<\/a> human rights organization B\u2019Tselem. The settlers came back as recently as last Sunday, the day before I talked with Abu Awad. Many Bedouins have fled these grazing lands in fear, but Abu Awad said he is staying.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t have any other place to go,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not the [Israelis\u2019] enemies. We just want them to leave us alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For those Israeli settlers who hope to drive Palestinians from Area C, the farmer-outpost strategy seems to be working. A settler leader named Ze\u2019ev \u201cZambish\u201d Hever explained the strategy<\/a> to his organization, Amana, the main construction company for the settler movement, in February 2021. \u201cThe shepherding farms which have increased \u2026 today they cover close to twice the land that the built-up communities [settlements] cover,\u201d Hever said. \u201cIf it\u2019s a war, if there\u2019s a battle for Area C, [local settler leaders] should behave like it\u2019s a war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We drove north, along settler superhighway Route 60. We entered Hebron, a dusty industrial town that for 40 years has been skirmishing with a settlement called Kiryat Arba, planted near the heart of the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, one of the far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s coalition, lives in Kiryat Arba. In August, he told a journalist<\/a>: \u201cMy right, and my wife\u2019s and my children\u2019s right, to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria is more important than the right to movement for Arabs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Road closures make travel a nightmare for Arabs. We passed the entrances to a string of Palestinian towns and villages traveling north; most have been blocked by the Israeli military with big piles of dirt or metal gates. Palestinians who want to travel outside their villages in Area C must pass through checkpoints staffed by often capricious Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Olives harvested by Palestinians near their village in Susyia, West Bank, on 4 Nov
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You can see the toll of this harassment in the terraces of derelict olive trees along the road north, near Hebron. Palestinian farmers have been afraid to pick their olives \u2014 or have been physically prevented from doing so. A Western diplomat told me olive oil production in the West Bank might be 35 percent below average this year as a result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jerusalem is the jewel in the center of this land. It\u2019s also the most volatile battleground between settlers and Israelis \u2014 and the place where the United States will have the biggest challenge in framing a compromise. Seidemann showed the two State Department officials and me how this sacred battleground looks. His worries are summed up in the title of a study he prepared this year for political and religious leaders around the world: \u201cThe Strategic Encirclement of Jerusalem\u2019s Old City.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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From Mount Scopus, in East Jerusalem, Seidemann pointed across the hills toward a big settlement called Ma\u2019ale Adumim, which houses some 40,000 people. For several decades, Israeli leaders have hoped to vastly expand it with a project known as E1. Seidemann calls that a \u201cdoomsday land bridge\u201d that would cut any future Palestinian state in half, separating south from north.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seidemann took us southeast to the Mount of Olives and a view of Jerusalem\u2019s Old City, which is sacred to three religions. We saw the golden Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosques revered by Muslims; the Garden of Gethsemane and other Christian holy sites; and beyond the Temple Mount where the mosques are located, the Western Wall \u2014 the \u201cWailing Wall\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s sacred for Jews.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One big goal for conservative, religious Israelis is to increase their presence throughout the Jerusalem area. To the south, Seidemann pointed to where settlers plan to build a cable car over the predominantly Palestinian district of Silwan that would reach the walls of the Old City. To the north, where the Christian sites are located, there\u2019s talk about constructing a biblical theme park that would be overseen by the Israeli parks authority. The political struggle over Jerusalem \u201chas been driven by religious pyromaniacs,\u201d Seidemann told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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TO CONTINUE READING Go to Original – washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for<\/em> The Washington Post. His latest novel is<\/em> The Paladin.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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16 Dec 2023 – For three days this past week, I traveled the West Bank from Hebron in the south to Nablus in the north. What I saw was a pattern of Israeli abuse that makes daily life a humiliation for many Palestinians \u2014 and could obstruct the peaceful future that Israelis and Palestinians both say they want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":251381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[928,532,1854,101,100,2898,87,865,1029,88,2414,2415,2416,3120,715,767,771,475,427,2897,880,99,124,70,92,965,1025,886],"class_list":["post-251380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-bds-boycott-divestment-sanctions","tag-colonialism","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-cultural-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-ecocide","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-israeli-apartheid","tag-israeli-army","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-jewish-settlers","tag-massacre","tag-middle-east","tag-nakba","tag-netanyahu","tag-palestine","tag-sociocide","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence","tag-united-nations","tag-usa","tag-violent-conflict","tag-war-crimes","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251380"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251387,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251380\/revisions\/251387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}