Israeli settlers on the rampage isn’t a shock – it’s daily life for Palestinians in the West Bank

Nimer Sultany

It’s no accident that the Israeli army didn’t stop the violence in Huwara: such intimidation is key to how the state rules over my people

Tue 28 Feb 2023 17.40 GMT

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undreds of Israeli settlers descended on Sunday night on the Palestinian town of Huwara near Nablus in the West Bank. They assaulted Palestinian civilians, shot one dead and set dozens of buildings and cars on fire. This rampage occurred in one of the most militarised territories in the world. Yet as far as we were concerned, the Israeli army, the strongest in the Middle East, was missing in action.

Witnessing such a violent rampage, many observers resort to calls for a “return to calm” in Palestine. But such feeble calls are no longer adequate – if they ever were. One cannot ignore the recurrent nature of settlers’ violence and the way it acts as a pillar of Israel’s rule over the Palestinians. The infliction of violence with impunity, the army’s enabling of this violence and the denial of basic rights embody the existing order. Sunday’s rampage is thus a manifestation of the status quo in Palestine, not an exceptional occurrence or momentary disorder.

Even prior to the formation of Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent cabinet, informed observers noted that settler violence in the West Bank was state sanctioned. But this time the chief arsonists are in government. The settlers’ violence is now effectively encouraged by a government in which far-right, ultra-nationalist settlers are the kingmakers. The cabinet is intent on increasing the demolitions of Palestinian homes, and on expanding settlement activity. It is also leading a vindictive and heavy-handed policy against all Palestinians.

A recent example of this is the Israeli parliament’s enactment of a law, with an overwhelming majority, that empowers the interior minister to revoke the Israeli citizenship or residency status of political prisoners convicted of terror offences who receive financial aid from the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli national security minister, who is leading this campaign, was convicted in 2007 by an Israeli court of “incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation”.

But the clearest example came this week. In an agreement struck between the ruling coalition, the finance minister, himself a settler, received broad responsibilities over civilian matters relating to settlements in the West Bank. The reason this is significant is because the West Bank is supposed to be under a military administration. The new arrangement normalises the settlers’ status in relation to Israeli state authorities. They will be treated as if they were ordinary citizens, even though their very presence in an occupied territory is a war crime.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz called this agreement an advancement of “full-fledged apartheid”. Others called it an act of “de jure annexation”, and thus contrary to rules (recently reaffirmed in the case of Ukraine) that prohibit the acquisition of territory by force.

Although this bureaucratic reorganisation of Israeli rule over the West Bank does not amount to legislative annexation – which the Israeli parliament did in the cases of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – the impact on the lives of Palestinians is the same. The West Bank settlers who sit on the supreme court, in the parliament and in government are seeking to consolidate Jewish supremacy over all Palestinians. And this cabinet agreement merely accelerates the process of colonising Palestine. Slowly but surely it would eradicate the legal smokescreen of temporary military occupation that has hitherto disguised Zionist expansionism.

Even prior to the agreement, it has long been evident that the longest military occupation since the second world war cannot be regarded as a temporary occupation. Israel rules over all Palestinians between the river and the sea, does not grant them equal rights and denies millions of them the right to vote. Jewish citizens are systematically privileged over, and segregated from, Palestinians. The “iron wall” doctrine seeks to make Palestinians’ lives miserable so they would leave or acquiesce to their inferior status. Public figures who made threats to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, promising them a “second Nakba”, are part of the mainstream discourse in Israel.

Is it sufficient to call for return to calm after decades of occupation and colonial annexation? In eastern Europe, a swift and unconditional international mobilisation has supported the Ukrainians in their fight against Russian occupation and annexation. Palestinians, too, need support to resist and achieve their rights. Instead of calling for a return to the status quo, we must fundamentally rethink the way things are to ensure freedom and equality for all.

• Nimer Sultany is reader in public law at Soas University of London. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/28/israeli-settlers-rampage-palestinians-west-bank-army-violence

 

‘Never like this before’: settler violence in West Bank escalates

Retaliatory rampage in Palestinian village likened to ‘Kristallnacht in Huwara’ with one dead and 350 injured

BethaTn McKernan in Huwara, West Bank

Mon 27 Feb 2023 19.01 GM

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here is a large rolling gate at the entrance to the small Palestinian village of Za’atara, in the north of the occupied West Bank, but it is rarely closed. On Sunday, however, wary that Israeli settlers living in the area were seeking revenge for the murder of two brothers shot dead by a Palestinian gunman in nearby Huwara, Za’atara’s residents were braced for retaliatory violence.

It didn’t take long for the settlers to arrive. Villagers said that by dusk, about 100 armed Israelis, accompanied by a dozen Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers, had massed on the road outside the entrance, and after the troops tried to intervene several of the settlers began shooting. Sameh Aqtash, a 37-year-old blacksmith who had just returned from earthquake volunteering efforts in Turkey, was shot in the stomach. Because the army would not clear the road for an ambulance to reach him, he bled to death, Aqtash’s nephew Fadi said.

Aqtash was somehow the only fatality during an unprecedented hours-long settler rampage in the vicinity of Huwara overnight: more than 350 Palestinians were injured, while dozens of homes and businesses and hundreds of cars were set alight, according to rights groups and Palestinian officials. In an article published on Monday morning, a prominent rightwing Israeli commentator, appalled by the reported inaction of the IDF, dubbed the events “Kristallnacht in Huwara”.

Sunday’s riot was triggered by the murders of Hillel Yaniv, 22, and Yagel Yaniv, 20, from the nearby settlement of Har Bracha. Route 60, the Israeli road running north to south through the middle of the territory, cuts right through the middle of Huwara, making the village a well-known flashpoint.

A gunman rammed into the brothers’ car while they were driving through, reports said, and shot them several times at point-blank range before fleeing the scene. Israeli forces are still searching for the as-yet unidentified attacker, who is believed to have been able to escape arrest owing to the chaos caused by the settler rampage.

“Of course there are lots of settlers and army around here and sometimes that is difficult but they have never come to Za’atara before like this,” Fadi Aqtash said, as he put his arm around one of Sameh’s five children outside the village mourning tent. Sporadic gunfire could be heard in the distance. “We are very worried about what will happen now,” the 29-year-old said.

Incidents of settler violence across the West Bank happen every day, and have steadily increased over the past few years: many of the 700,000 or so Israelis living in the territory and East Jerusalem are motivated by what they see as a religious mission to restore the historical land of Israel to the Jewish people.

Israeli settlers burn Palestinian homes after brothers shot dead – video

Shootings, knife attacks, burning crops, vandalism and the theft of land and livestock are supposed to make life for Palestinians so unbearable they have no choice but to leave. On many occasions, the Israeli army has been documented failing to stem the violence, or even joining in.

No one the Guardian spoke to in the Huwara area on Monday, however, could recall such an intense and widespread episode, which Palestinians and Israelis fear could lead to more attacks on both sides and a return to full-blown conflict.

Stability in the region has arguably already broken down. Last year was the bloodiest on record in Israel and the West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of the 2000s. About 63 Palestinians and 13 Israelis have been killed so far in 2023, mostly in IDF raids and Palestinian terrorist attacks.

Also on Sunday, Israel and Palestinian security officials met in Jordan for the first high-level talks in years aimed at calming tensions before the imminent Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is often a catalyst for escalation.

It does not seem likely that the situation on the ground can improve. The Palestinian Authority (PA), the West Bank’s semi-autonomous governing body, has all but lost control of several areas in the north of the territory to newly formed militias that do not take orders from the traditional Palestinian factions.

At the same time, Israeli security forces appeared to be unprepared or unwilling to deal with the scale of the settler violence in Huwara on Sunday, despite the fact that settler leaders made public calls for a march to “wipe out” Huwara in revenge for the deaths of the two brothers.

The Israeli military estimated that between 300 and 400 people took part in the rampage, although only 10 arrests have been made, and anonymous security officials told Israeli media that plans made by the IDF’s central command were “faulty”.

A joint communique from the Jordan summit expressing “readiness and commitment to work immediately” to prevent further violence was not just undermined by the rioting in Huwara, but by members of the Israeli government.

Several elements of Israel’s new far-right administration are ardent members of the settler movement, who have variously called for the full annexation of the West Bank, relaxing the rules of engagement for Israel’s police and soldiers, and harsher punishments for Palestinians who commit terror attacks. Their plans to neuter Israel’s supreme court have also prompted the biggest political crisis in the country’s history, bringing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets in protest against moves they say will erode democratic norms.

While the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a video statement on Sunday night calling on people not to “take the law into their own hands”, members of his coalition fanned the flames, telling the IDF to show “no mercy” and visiting the scene to support the rioters.

By Monday, they had melted away, and the streets of Huwara were deserted except for soldiers and armoured patrol vehicles that roared up and down the main road. At Tapuach junction, a settlement known for its violent outlook to the south of the village, settlers carrying pistols and automatic rifles mingled with IDF units as they waited to march on Huwara again in the evening as part of the funeral procession for the killed brothers. Meanwhile, in the south of the West Bank, reports emerged of another shooting attack that killed a 27-year-old Israeli.

Inspecting the damage at his workplace in the middle of Huwara, Sakir, a 22-year-old mechanic, said that he thought the Israeli settlers living in the area had grown bolder since the new Israeli government entered office in December. “They know they can do whatever they like,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/israeli-settler-violence-in-west-bank-escalates-huwara