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Israel's
Settlement Law: Consolidating Apartheid
Israel's obstinacy is leaving Palestinians with one
option: Equal citizenship in one state or a horrific
apartheid.
By Ramzy Baroud
February 12,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Al
Jazeera" -
"Israel has just opened the 'floodgates', and crossed
a 'very, very thick red line'." These were the words of
Nickolay Mladenov, United Nations' Coordinator for the
Middle East Peace Process, in response to the passing
of a bill at the Israeli Knesset on February 7 that
retroactively legalises thousands of illegal settler
homes, built on stolen Palestinian land.
Mladenov's job title has grown so irrelevant in
recent years that it merely delineates a reference to a
bygone era: a "peace process" that has ensured the
further destruction of whatever remained of the
Palestinian homeland.
Israeli politicians' approval of the bill is indeed
an end of an era.
We have reached the point where we can openly declare
that the so-called peace process was an illusion from
the start, for Israel had no intentions of ever
conceding the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to
the Palestinians.
In response to the passing of the bill, many news
reports alluded to the fact that the arrival of
Donald Trump in the White House, riding a wave of
right-wing populism, was the inspiration needed by
equally right-wing Israeli politicians to cross that
"very, very thick red line".
There is truth to that, of course. But it is hardly
the whole story.
The political map of the world is vastly changing.
Just weeks before Trump made his way to the Oval
Office, the international community strongly condemned
Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land
occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.
It is important, though, that we realise
that Israel's latest push to legalise
illegal outposts and annex large swaths of
the West Bank is the norm, not the
exception.
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UN Security Council
Resolution 2334 stated that these settlements have
no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of
international law. Fourteen UNSC members voted in
approval, while the US abstained, a revolutionary act by
the US' brazenly pro-Israel standards.
The US, when still in the final days of the Barack
Obama administration, followed that act by even more
stunning language, as Secretary of State John Kerry
described the Israeli government as the "most right-wing
in history".
A chasm immediately emerged.
Capitalising on the US-Israel rift, Trump railed
against Obama and Kerry for treating pompous Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with "total disdain
and disrespect". Trump
asked Israel to "stay strong", for January 20 was
not too far away.
That date, Trump's inauguration was the holy grail
for Israel's right-wing politicians, who mobilised
immediately after Trump's rise to power. Israel's
intentions received additional impetus from Britain's
Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May. Despite her
government vote to condemn Israeli settlements at the
UN, she
too ranted against the US for its censure of Israel.
Kerry's attack on a "democratically elected Israeli
government" was not appropriate, May charged. "We do not
… believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing
on only one issue, in this case, the construction of
settlements," she added.
Not only did May's words define the very hypocrisy of
the British government (which committed the original sin
100 years ago of handing historic Palestine to Zionist
groups), but it was all that Israel needed to push
forward with the new bill.
It is quite telling that the vote on the bill took
place while Netanyahu was on an official visit to the
UK. In a country greatly influenced by
'Friends of Israel' cliques in both dominant
parties, he was among friends.
With the UK duly pacified, and the US in full support
of Israel, moving forward with annexing Palestinian land
became an obvious choice for Israeli politicians.
Bezalel Smotrich, a Knesset member of the extremist
Jewish Home party, put it best. "We thank the American
people for voting Trump into office, which was what gave
us the opportunity for the bill to pass,"
he said shortly after the vote.
The so-called "Regulation
Bill" will retroactively validate 4,000 illegal
structures built on private Palestinian land. In the
occupied Palestinian territories, all
Jewish settlements are considered illegal under
international law, as further indicated in UNSC
Resolution 2334.
There are also 97 illegal Jewish settlement outposts
- a modest estimation - that are now set to be legalised
and, naturally, expanded at the expense of Palestine.
The price of these settlements has been paid mostly by
US taxpayers' money, but also the blood and tears of
Palestinians, generation after generation.
It is important, though, that we realise that
Israel's latest push to legalise illegal outposts and
annex large swaths of the West Bank is the norm, not the
exception.
Indeed, the entire Zionist vision for Israel was
achieved based on the illegal appropriation of
Palestinian land. Wasn't so-called "Israel proper" - as
in land obtained by force from 1948 to 1967 - originally
Palestinian land?
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Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and
East Jerusalem in 1967, it moved quickly to fortify its
military occupation by unleashing settlement
construction throughout the occupied territories.
The early settlements had a strategic military
purpose, for the intent was to create enough facts on
the ground that would alter the nature of any future
peace settlement; thus, the Allon
Plan. It was named after Yigal Allon, a former
general and minister in the Israeli government who took
on the task of drawing an Israeli vision for the newly
conquered Palestinian territories.
The plan sought to annex more than 30 percent of the
West Bank and all of Gaza for security purposes. It
stipulated the establishment of a "security corridor"
along the Jordan River, as well as outside the "Green
Line", a one-sided Israeli demarcation of its borders
with the West Bank.
While the religious component of the Israeli
colonisation scheme currently defines the entire
undertaking, it was not always this way. The Allon Plan
was the brainchild of Israel's Labor government, as the
Israeli Right then was a negligible political force.
To capitalise on the government's alluring settlement
policies in the West Bank, a group of religious Jews
rented a hotel in the Palestinian town of Al-Khalil
(Hebron) to spend Passover at the Cave of the
Patriarchs, and simply refused to leave.
Their action sparked biblical passion of religious
orthodox Israelis across the country, who referred to
the West Bank by its supposed biblical name, Judea and
Samaria. In 1970, to "diffuse" the situation, the
Israeli government constructed the Kiryat Arba
settlement on the outskirts of the Arab city, which
invited more orthodox Jews to join the growing movement.
Over the years, the strategic settlement growth was
complemented by the religiously motivated expansion,
championed by a vibrant movement, epitomised in the
finding of Gush
Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) in 1974. The movement
was on a mission to settle the West Bank with legions of
fundamentalists.
Presently, by incorporating the illegal outposts (the
work of religious zealots) into the strategically
located, government-sanctioned larger illegal settlement
blocs, Israeli politics and religion converged like
never before.
And between the unfortunate past and the troubling
present, Palestinians continue to be driven out of their
ancestral land and homes.
But what is the Palestinian leadership doing about it?
"I can't deny that the (bill) helps us to better explain
our position. We couldn't have asked for anything more,"
a Palestinian
Authority official told Al-Monitor on condition of
anonymity, as quoted by Shlomi Elder.
Elder writes:
"The bill, whether it goes through or is blocked by the
Supreme Court, already proves that Israel is not
interested in a diplomatic resolution of the conflict."
Be as it may,
this is hardly enough. It is absurd to argue that it was
Palestinians' purported inability to articulate their
position that emboldened Israel to this extent. It is
rather the international community's failure to
translate its laws into action that bolstered Israel's
militancy.
The greatest
mistake that the Palestinian leadership has committed
(aside from its disgraceful disunity) was entrusting the
US, Israel's main enabler, with managing a "peace
process" that has allowed Israel time and resources to
finish its colonial projects, while devastating
Palestinian rights and political aspirations.
Returning to
the same old channels, using the same language, seeking
salvation at the altar of the same old "two-state
solution" will achieve nothing, but to waste further
time and energy. It is Israel's obstinacy that is now
leaving Palestinians (and Israelis) with one option, and
only one option: equal citizenship in one single state
or a horrific apartheid. No other "solution" suffices.
In fact, the
Regulation Bill is further proof that the Israeli
government has already made its decision: consolidating
apartheid in Palestine. If Trump and May find the logic
of Netanyahu's apartheid acceptable, the rest of the
world shouldn't.
In the words of former President Jimmy
Carter, "Israel will never
find peace until it ... permit(s) the Palestinians to
exercise their basic human and political rights." That
Israeli "permission" is yet to arrive, leaving the
international community with the moral responsibility to
exact it.
Dr
Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for
more than 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated
columnist, a media consultant, an author of several
books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His
books include Searching Jenin and The Second Palestinian
Intifada, and his latest, My Father Was a Freedom
Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story. His website is
www.ramzybaroud.net .
The views
expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
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