Last week some inhabitants of the Palestinian village of Burin, near Nablus, set up a small and peaceful protest camp on private land in an attempt to protect the village from encroaching Jewish settlers. On Saturday, the Israeli Army evicted the Palestinians. According to one report [2], the settlers uprooted nearly 100 olive trees, a 16-year-old Palestinian was wounded, 20 people suffered tear gas inhalation, and a mosque was set on fire.
As I read about these events, which transpired not far from where I live, I was struck by how we Palestinians are no longer able to enjoy the land where we live. In recent years Jewish settlers have taken plenty of unpopulated Palestinian land; now, even our hometowns are unsafe.
And, of course, the scramble for land in the West Bank is not the only way in which settlers have been increasingly impinging on our lives.
Four days ago, Palestinian customs officials seized [3] 13 tons of expired food that was smuggled in from settlements and repackaged with a later expiration date. The Palestinian police have no jurisdiction over the settlers and cannot prosecute those responsible for the scam. And it’s doubtful that the Israeli authorities will take action.
Israel’s record of pursuing crimes by its own army and the settlers is, in fact, dismal. For example, last year, of 240 allegations of I.D.F. soldiers abusing Palestinians, there were 78 probes and zero indictments [4].
No wonder that as time passes the boldness of the settlers increases, along with the casualty figures and the area of land captured.
The success of Naftali Bennett, whose Jewish Home party won 12 seats in the recent Israeli elections, only adds to the sense of dread among many Palestinians. Bennett’s party has a declared program to annex outright large parts of the West Bank. For Bennett there is no occupation [5], only appropriation. “The land is ours,” he said in a speech at Bar-Ilan University.
Meanwhile, last Thursday a fact-finding mission of the U.N. Human Rights Council issued a scathing report [6] about the settlers’ tactics, perhaps the boldest report ever issued by a U.N. body. It noted that “the identities of settlers who are responsible for violence and intimidation are known to the Israeli authorities, yet these acts continue with impunity.” It continued: “The mission believes that the motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians as well as their properties is to drive the local population away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand.”
The report called on “all member states to comply with their obligations under international law and to assume their responsibilities in their relationship to a state breaching pre-emptory norms of international law.”The settlers’ brazen behavior juxtaposed with the U.N. report points to the widening gulf between how the Israeli government sees itself and how the rest of the world sees it.
Will U.N. member states comply? Will they impose sanctions on Israel?
Certainly the Israeli establishment and the settlers’ allies don’t think so.
This is not a case of ordinary neighbors at odds with each other. We are witnessing a worsening breach of law that is leading to a serious threat to the international legal system. The settlers are perpetuating a conflict that if it were to erupt again would endanger the peace of the entire Middle East.
Sadly, if the law continues to fail the Palestinians, a new wave of violence in the Occupied Territories may be the result.
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