What Israel is really up to

Philip Giraldi, Anti-War -I would argue that much of what the American public is seeing and hearing about Iran and Syria is a red herring. If the media is focused on developments in Syria and Iran it will be excusable not to pay any attention to what Israel is doing in its own backyard in what remains of Palestine. And Israel is most definitely up to its usual tricks on the West Bank. Benjamin Netanyahu has recently announced the building of 1,200 more housing units for Jews only in occupied East Jerusalem and on the West Bank. If the Palestinians seek permanent observer member-state status in the United Nations at the end of this month, there have been suggestions that Israel will retaliate by building even more new settlements. The Israeli media is reporting a senior government official’s assertion that “If the Palestinians go to the UN, we won’t continue to show the restraint that we’ve demonstrated in terms of settlement construction.”

Restraint? Benjamin Netanyahu has no desire to see any viable Palestinian state and he has exploited the United States as an enabler in his commission of war crimes to stall any progress in that direction. When Israel was created it managed to seize control of 78% of the historic Palestine leaving only 22% to the Palestinian inhabitants. That 22% has now been reduced to less than 10% remaining on the West Bank plus Gaza. Israel is intent on colonizing the more desirable parts of the West Bank, crowding the remaining Palestinians into a cluster of Bantustans that will be “self-governing” though without any of the attributes of sovereignty. The Arabs will not control their own water resources and airspace, will be hemmed in by Jews-only highways that they cannot use and military zones that they cannot enter, and will be prey to arbitrary action by the Israeli army to “protect” settlers and maintain security.

The Israelis appropriate Palestinian land as the wish to create new settlements and the rampaging settlers themselves destroy Palestinian farms and businesses so that the people will have no livelihood and will be forced to leave. All of the Israeli action is, of course, illegal in addition to being unconscionable as the Geneva Conventions consider it a war crime to seize and colonize land that has been occupied by military action. Israeli settlers on the West Bank have increased from 200,000 in 2000 and now number more than 350,000. They continue to increase, with settlements constituting 42% of the West Bank. If one adds in the 300,000 Jews living in Arab East Jerusalem and in the adjacent areas that have been illegally annexed to Israel proper, the total becomes 650,000 for Israeli Jews living in territories that were occupied in 1968. And there should be no confusion about the ultimate intentions of the Israeli government, which has secretly doubled its budget for settlement expansion. Hardliner Knesset member Yaakov Katz has predicted that “within four years,” there will be more than 1 million Jews living beyond the Green Line that once separated Jordan from Israel, and “then the revolution will be completed.”

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