Yossi Mekelberg
In the frenzied rollercoaster ride that Israelis have been taken on by their government over the past six months, one could easily miss, in the blink of an eye, yet another of those crazy decisions that are so detrimental to the country’s existence and well-being.
As is to be expected, much attention has been paid to the coalition government’s deliberate sabotage of the country’s democratic system. As a consequence, its approach to the Occupied Palestinian Territories has become a secondary issue — erroneously and dangerously so.
Bearing in mind the composition of the coalition, the extreme views held by key Cabinet ministers regarding a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and its repulsive attitude to Palestinians both as a people and as individual human beings, such neglect is at one’s own peril. This is particularly true if it is on the part of the international community, which still claims to have an interest in a peace agreement based on a two-state solution.
Last Sunday the Israeli Cabinet approved a resolution designed to speed up the process of approval for construction projects in Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It is not as if the Israeli government all of a sudden has recognized the need to remove red tape when it comes to the construction industry. As any developer inside Israel could tell you, especially in the towns and villages where Palestinians live, obtaining any kind of building permission involves a truly circuitous route.
Nevertheless, for decades the settlers have been the most pampered portion of Israeli society, enjoying disproportionately generous resources when it comes to creating infrastructure, education, health systems, and security. The latest decision is yet another example of the preferential treatment these unlawful settlers are receiving from the government.
These benefits are being disbursed at the expense of other segments of the Israeli population, but even more deviously with the clear aim of guaranteeing that any two-state solution ends up dead and buried, and that Israel will eventually annex, if not the entire West Bank, at least a large part of it.
In the early days of the current government, it did not seem that those within it that are representatives of the settlers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who themselves reside in two of the more ideologically extreme settlements, were in any hurry to advance the settlements agenda as much they were on a mission to weaken the judicial system.
Yet this should not catch us off guard, because for them there is a clear link between the two issues.
A weaker Supreme Court is one that will be unable to prevent settlers from illegally grabbing more Palestinian land, harassing and terrorizing Palestinian civilians, and normalizing what is already the settlers’ version of a lawless Wild West where they have free rein to do as they please.
The intention of last Sunday’s resolution is made even more clear by the fact that it gives Smotrich, who in addition to being finance minister also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry, power over one stage of the planning-approval process. I cannot imagine him rejecting many, if any, applications to construct more houses in settlements, while continuing to put pressure on the government to forcibly displace Palestinian families from Khan Al-Aham and Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, or from Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem.
This decision is aimed at accelerating the expansion of settlements and the settler population, but this time on steroids. Only last week, Israel approved 4,560 new housing units in Jewish settlements, and another 3,000 are expected to be approved very soon. It is not only the number of housing units but also their locations that are intended to ensure that should a Palestinian state become a reality — something that, by now, is widely considered to be only a remote possibility — it will not be a contiguous territory.
This is in addition to the current Israeli government’s legalization of many of the outposts that were regarded as illegal even under Israeli law because they were built without government approval.
But whatever name they might be given, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are regarded as illegal under international law, and by international consensus as representing the biggest obstacle to reaching a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At this point in the history of the conflict there are no political or social forces in Israel strong enough to even advance an agenda that opposes the expansion of settlements, let alone drive it to the heart of the country’s political discourse. Therefore, the response from the international community is crucial — but it remains weak and uncommitted to taking concrete steps to contain the phenomenon.
In response to the Israeli government’s announcement of the acceleration of the settlement process, the US State Department released a statement declaring that “the United States is deeply troubled” by the Israeli government’s decision and the “administrative” changes to Israel’s judiciary that will expedite the process. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has stated that he is “alarmed” by these developments and reiterated that the settlements are “a flagrant violation of international law.”
In other words, the international community as a whole is deeply troubled by the expansion of settlements and their illegality. Nevertheless, these expressions of concern or condemnation have become a routine, almost Pavlovian reaction to yet another escalation of the settlements project, but it is a reaction with very few teeth, to the point that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians take such declarations seriously — and quite probably, neither do those who make them.
To some extent, an ultra-right-wing government such as the one now in power in Israel will thrive on defying the international community, especially if doing so has no concrete consequences.
It is about time that it dawned on the international community, especially those who would like to see an end to the expansion of the settlements, that the people currently calling the shots in the Israeli government have the clear objective of annexing the West Bank, and they are far from shy about shouting it from the rooftops.
In the face of uninterested public opinion in Israel, and an incompetent international community, it is not surprising that the settlement movement feels that its ultimate goal of annexation is getting closer. Meanwhile, the international community, through its lack of a meaningful response, is contributing to this scenario becoming reality.
