Opinion | A Dangerous Shift Is Underway in the West Bank | CPT PPP Coverage

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At the time, such an aspiration could not be articulated or voiced due to the political climate, so these extremist leaders resorted to euphemism. But in the past few years, Israeli politicians, have spoken openly about their desire to annex most of the West Bank, including, at one time, Naftali Bennett before he became prime minister. Today, with a government that appears far more aligned with them, the extremist settlers seem to think that the white donkey is in sight.

The far-right Israeli cabinet minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has been a settler activist himself, is now the de facto minister of the West Bank. The new Israeli government has declared its commitment to a policy that strives to boost Israeli presence and diminish the Palestinian footprint in Area C. The area is envisioned under the Oslo Accords to be gradually handed over to the Palestinian Authority but remains under Israeli control. It covers 60 percent of the West Bank, and includes all of the Jewish settlements. The current government has just issued a new policy that will speed up the approval process for settlement construction and advanced plans for building more than 4,000 new settlements units there.

The Biden administration has issued welcome condemnations of settler violence and of Israel’s failure to confront it, as well as of the Israeli government’s settlement expansion policy. But judging by these public announcements, it may be missing the full importance of this dangerous shift in both the motivation behind the attacks and the government’s position. Washington is reacting to settler violence mainly as a failure of the Israeli authorities to enforce the law on violent settlers, and to settlement policies as an impediment to a future peace agreement. Both are correct, but they do not address the prospect of these policies and practices to drive out West Bank Palestinians.

Already, in May, the entire population of Ein Samiya, a tiny Palestinian community of about 200 people northeast of Ramallah, packed up their modest belongings and fled their homes following unrelenting attacks by neighboring settlers. “We decided to leave out of fear of the settlers,” Khader, a father of nine, told Haaretz’s Hagar Shezaf. “I left for my children. My youngest said to me, ‘I don’t want to live here — the settlers come and throw stones. Tomorrow they could kill me.’”

But even as the settlers terrorize their Palestinian neighbors with increasing frequency and ferocity, their actions have come with little consequence; Israeli authorities seldom prosecute or convict them. In some recent attacks, Israeli military and police officers have even been documented standing idly by as settlers stormed and burned Palestinian villages.