"A Message From the West Bank: ‘We Are Coming to Horrible Days’"

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Nicholas Kristof is a veteran columnist for the New York Times.

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Excerpt below - link to full article here. 

A Message From the West Bank: ‘We Are Coming to Horrible Days’

Nicholas Kristof
Opinion Columnist, New York Times

June 29, 2024

The West Bank village of Qusra was smoldering as I arrived. Clouds of black smoke swirled from a field where rampaging Israeli settlers had lit it on fire, while also setting fire to Palestinian homes and vehicles, according to Qusra residents.

“At any moment, we expect settlers to attack,” said Abdel-Majeed Hassan, a salt-of-the-earth farmer in his 70s. He showed me the blackened ground where his car had been set on fire, the latest of four cars belonging to his family that he said settlers had destroyed.

Six residents of this village have been killed in such attacks since October, when the Israeli government responded to the Hamas terror attack from Gaza by imposing far harsher rule in the West Bank — more checkpoints, more raids, more Israeli settlements — and by giving armed settlers freer rein to attack Palestinian farmers. The result is a despair and fury that every Palestinian I spoke to predicted would lead to a bloody uprising.

[ . . . ]

There are places in the world with significantly worse oppression and killing, including in Arab countries like Sudan, Syria and Yemen that draw less attention or protest. But Israel’s “state-backed settler violence,” as Amnesty International describes it, is enforced by American weapons provided to Israel. When armed settlers terrorize Palestinians and force them off their land — as has happened to 18 communities since October — they sometimes carry American M16 rifles. Sometimes they are escorted by Israeli troops.

With Israel possibly winding down the most intensive phase of its war in Gaza, we should be paying much more attention to the crisis building in the more populous West Bank. The United Nations reports that 536 Palestinians, including 130 children, in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the last eight months. During the same period, seven Israeli soldiers and five settlers have been killed here by Palestinians..

[ . . . ]

Israelis do have legitimate reason to be fearful, and Palestinians do throw rocks at settlers and occasionally kill or injure them. While on average fewer than one settler has been killed a month since Oct. 7, that’s partly because settlers have guns, high walls and soldiers protecting them. Polls show growing support for Hamas on the West Bank, and many Israelis conclude that their survival depends on crushing Palestinians, not trusting them.

The village of Qusra has about 5,000 inhabitants, while the nearby Jewish settlement of Migdalim has about 600. One angry Qusra resident told me that it might take 2,000 Palestinian attackers, but they probably could overrun Migdalim if it came to that. So Migdalim settlers have a right to be nervous, but it’s also true that settlers have earned the loathing directed at them.

Settlers in Migdalim did not respond to my requests for comment, but Shmuel Junger, who works with an organization that supports settlements, said in an email that it is the people of Qusra who have attacked Migdalim, not the other way around.

“After everything we witnessed on Oct. 7, do you still believe that Israelis shouldn’t do everything in their power to protect their homes?” Junger asked.

[ . . . ]

The anger about land theft and settler violence is compounded by a growing economic crisis. The World Bank estimates that about 300,000 people in the West Bank have lost their jobs since Oct. 7.

The economic difficulties were compounded in May when a far-right Israeli cabinet minister, Bezalel Smotrich, began withholding Palestinian tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority, or P.A. Along with other punitive financial measures taken by Israel, there are growing fears that the P.A. could collapse — but Smotrich is not concerned.

“If this causes the collapse of the P.A., let it collapse,” he reportedly said.

In contrast, the Biden administration is alarmed. “If you saw the Palestinian Authority collapse and instability spread across the West Bank, it’s not just a problem for the Palestinians,” said Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman. “It is also a massive security threat for the state of Israel.

[ . . . ]

Policy to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is immensely complex, with infinite room for nuance. I’ve focused here on the security dimension, for I believe it’s in American and Israeli interests to create a Palestinian state. But one more thing must be said: The seizure and occupation of other people’s land is wrong. And it is not wrong in a complicated, finely balanced way; it is simply, straightforwardly wrong.

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Continue reading the full article at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/29/opinion/israel-gaza-west-bank.html?unlocked_article_code=1.300.RulY.fFnv7cWBLwFk&smid=url-share

Photo by Natacha de Hepcée on Unsplash