The west Bank is on a hot tin

With the announcement by the leaders of the occupying state, and in conjunction with the measures to stop the aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip, of transforming the West Bank into a major battlefield once again, here is the West Bank, witnessing one of the greatest peaks of aggression against it. Indeed, almost every geographical spot in it these days is a special kind of scene for an attack that rises in its regard to the level of a war crime.

The crimes of the colonists have reached unprecedented levels, not only in terms of statistics, numbers and indicators, but also in terms of the dangerous curves that have become a fixed approach for the colonists and their decision-makers within the occupation government; crimes that continue without stopping, aiming to force the owners of the land to leave. This is not a secret goal, by the way, but rather the leaders of the occupation state declare it openly, day and night, all the time. On the other hand, the machine of destruction continues to storm the heart of Palestinian cities, especially in the northern West Bank, with its full intent to destroy the infrastructure, target camps and execute people without batting an eyelid in the culture of those who are new to the ancient Palestinian era.

The crimes of the colonists, which go beyond the idea of primitive violence, to the principle of terrorism sponsored by the official institution, cannot be viewed as isolated from the colonial context, but rather have become established in this context, committing arson, execution, and deportation of citizens, and what is more dangerous than that, the occupying state has come to protect it with a nurturing legislative environment, providing it with support, care, and immunity.

On the other hand, while the occupying state is inventing reasons to oppress the Palestinians, and throughout the geography of the Palestinian territories these days, with the barriers of hell that burn time, health and livelihood, this ingenuity in transforming the life of the Palestinian into a hell and continuous torment, would not have happened except because the world has completely stopped being a guardian of human rights, and a deterrent to the criminal behaviors adopted by the last occupying entity on the face of the earth and history, leaving the defenseless Palestinian in the end prey to bullying and savagery.

In the background of the horrific events that are sweeping the Palestinian territories these days, fingers were pointing to ugly coalition promises made by the head of the occupation government to the ministers of religious Zionism in order to prevent them from toppling the government. There is something that indicates once again a sick occupation mind that sees the attack on the Palestinians, their geography, their way of life and their blood as material for politics and negotiation for cheap political calculations. This material did not start here and at this time, of course, but rather began from the zero moment of the occupation, which has escalated over the course of seven decades and has reached one of its most dangerous peaks these days.

The occupying state has proven, over the long years of occupation, that the methodology of comprehensive closure of Palestinian geography, represented by checkpoints, crossings, gates, and the annexation and expansion wall, was not only aimed at controlling the movement of Palestinians on the streets, but rather, through more than 898 gates, checkpoints, barriers, and a wall that is more than 700 km long, nibbling at the land and writhing in it like snakes, it wanted to reshape Palestinian geography according to the sick whims of the occupier, transforming the geography of the Palestinians and their existence into narrow enclaves and cantons, repelling living and housing, and subject to the most severe system of surveillance and control over the lives of those living under occupation, completely eliminating the possibility of communication not only between two neighboring governorates, but also extending to eliminating communication between a village and the village next to it.

On the other hand, the methodology of controlling the land and dispossessing the land from its original owners did not stop for a single moment, in a methodology that is far from random, but rather in an insistence on tightening the grip and control over the strategic details of Palestinian geography, in order to achieve the goal of eliminating the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state in the future, opening this usurped geography to place more colonies and colonial outposts, so that it would be a stage for reaching the goal of one million colonists by the year 2030, which is the goal announced by the so-called Settlements Council, which is the colonial political arm of the occupying state, which evidence and data have proven in the past period to be responsible for drawing up colonial settlement policies, while the official arms of the occupying state undertake the task of implementing these policies to the letter.

The goal of a million settlers would not have been achieved, and this is something the leaders of the colonial settlement project are fully aware of, except through a large set of measures that go beyond establishing settlements and outposts, but extend beyond that to granting billions of shekels in privileges that reshape the infrastructure, streets, energy projects, communications towers, and reduced taxes in the Palestinian land for the benefit of the settlers, and a tight security grip on the necks of the Palestinians, starting with closing the streets and not ending with the borders of their expulsion and the complete emptying of their geography.

The Palestinian people, who are standing these days on the test of the black plans that are being woven in the darkness of closed rooms, and who have fully proven during and after the Nakba, during the Naksa and what followed it, and during the massacres and the scars and wounds they left in their collective consciousness, their ability to confront, and their ability to stand firm and continue, must these days carry their old tools based on awareness, patience and belief to a broader horizon of confrontation, a horizon based on national unity that is included under a national strategy that includes all Palestinians, that treats the internal cracks with strengthening, elevation and awareness, and sets out to the world to deliver the message and the truth of what is happening, rallying the free people of the world, and building a new front that sides with justice and the rights of the oppressed in the holiest spot on earth, Palestine.

Moayad Shaaban

Head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission