West Bank: Large Israeli land theft – Abbas regime adapts to interests of US imperialism
Featured image: Construction of new buildings in Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem. Source: Ahmad Gharabli / AFP
Amid the genocidal champaign against the Palestinian people of Gaza, in which more than 35 thousand people have been murdered, the State of Israel intensifies the annexation of the West Bank and the forced displacement of the Palestinian people living there.
On the 22nd of March the Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, announced that the State of Israel would seize 10 square kilometers of land from Palestinians on the West Bank. This is reportedly the largest theft of land in the West Bank by the State of Israel since the 1993 Oslo accords. The seized land will be used to expand the illegal Israeli settlement of the West Bank. Regarding the decition Smotrich stated the following: “we are promoting settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner all over the country.”
The land theft will further divide the Palestinian territory by cutting through it, dividing the north and the south. Palestinian land rights activist, Hamza Zubiedat, stated that this “will be a catastrophe for Palestinians who live in the south … Palestinian traders, especially in the south, will be cut off, and it will become impossible to have any independent Palestinian ways of life.”
On the 6th of March the State of Israel approved 3,500 new illegal settlement housing units in the West Bank. Last year, 2023, the State of Israel approved the construction of 18,515 housing units in illegal settlements, but it did not approve any more after the 7th of October, until the 6th of March. According to a Zionist group promoting illegal settlements, there were already more than 850 thousand Israeli settlers in the West Bank by January of this year.
The Rome Statutes of the International Criminal Court defines the following as a war crime: “The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. Also Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention states that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Thus it is clear that these acts constitutes further war crimes committed by the State of Israel.
Since the 7th of October the State of Israel has also increased its attacks on the people of the West Bank, where at least 457 people, including more than 117 children have been murdered. At least 7,350 people have been arrested and at least 9,100 Palestinians are currently held captive by the State of Israel. In addition it is reported that thousands of Palestinians, including children, have been detained, tortured and interrogated unofficial by the IDF. The State of Israel is continuously carrying out raids in the West Bank, murdering and arresting Palestinians. On the 13th of March is was reported that Israeli forces shot and murdered a 13-year-old boy during a raid in a refugee camp in East Jerusalem. The Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, praised the murder: “I salute the fighter who killed the terrorist”.
The State of Israel is also using settlers to violently displace Palestinians of the West Bank and rob their lands and homes. The OCHA of the UN recorded 561 incidents of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians between the 7th of October and the 20th of February. From the 7th of October to the 17th of January settlers murdered at lest eight Palestinians and injured 111, according to the OCHA. Settler violence, often supported by the Israeli army, is reported to have displaced at least 1,208 Palestinians, including 586 children, from 198 homes.
Imperialism, manly Yankee, and the State of Israel is also repressing the Palestinian people of the West Bank though the regime of the national traitor Mahmoud Abbas. A regime like the Bantustan-regimes set up by the State of South Africa as part of its apartheid policy. Lackeys of imperialism and the Zionists. While pretending to take a centrist position in regards to the State of Israel and the National Resistance Front of Palestine, condemning “both sides”, the regime acts as loyal lackeys cracking down on protests against the genocide in Gaza. This regime has the blood of the Palestinian people on its hand and their crimes include the murder of 12-year-old Razan Nasrallah who was participating in protests against the Israeli attacks on Gaza on the 17th of October, 2023.
This regime, which has not been elected, and a large majority of the Palestinian people wants to get rid of, only exists with the backing of Yankee imperialism and the State of Israel.
Yankee President Joe Biden has laid out the plans of US imperialism to get a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority that can take over the governance of Gaza. In February the whole government of the Abbas regime resigned so that Abbas could set up a new government more in accordance with the interest of Yankee imperialism. On the 28th of March Abbas announced the new government, lead by US-educated economist Mohammad Mustafa, consisting of relatively unknown technocrats and economists as well as people from Abba’s clique of traitors. The following day the Yankees welcomed the new government.
