PALESTINE

Wed 15 Mar 2023 9:44 pm - Jerusalem Time

The National Bureau: The new occupation government is stuck in the challenges of its coalition agreements

Nablus - "Jerusalem" dot com - Imad Saadeh - The National Bureau for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance indicated that the occupation government, "Ben Gvir-Smotrich" headed by "Netanyahu", seems, since its early days, to be stuck in a wide range of problems that cast a shadow on the state The Israeli occupation because of its program, on the basis of which it gained confidence from the Knesset.


The office of the Palestine Liberation Organization pointed out in a report that the coalition agreements between the participating parties in the government have committed this government itself to enacting a series of laws that constitute fertile material for a conflict over the nature of the state on the one hand,


And the relationship with the Palestinians on the other hand. It is not yet known to what extent this government will enact such laws that would bring about a fundamental change in the nature of the Israeli regime; Such as the impunity law that prevents Netanyahu from being brought to trial, the “overcoming” law that enables the Knesset to re-enact laws that the Supreme Court repealed for contradicting the Basic Laws, the law appointing judges and the president of the Supreme Court, and the discrimination law that allows utility owners not to provide service to customers for religious or religious motives. Moral, and the law abolishing the incitement to racism clause that prevents any list, party or person from participating in the Knesset elections under the pretext of incitement to racism and others.


This is on the Israeli side. As for the side that is related to the relationship with the Palestinians, we are facing a series of laws and measures granted by the coalition agreements to Ben Gvir and Smotrich and the Minister of Civil Administration, and other powers related to settler activity and the lives of Palestinians under occupation. Especially since the government coalition agreements ignored the existence of the Palestinian people and the existence of the occupation and emphasized at the same time, the Jewishness of the state and that the “Jewish people” alone have the exclusive right to unchallenged self-determination over all parts of the country, and that sovereignty will be imposed on “Judea and Samaria” with a choice The appropriate time and taking into account the national and diplomatic calculations of the State of Israel. And she confirmed that the government would strengthen Jewish settlement in the various regions of Palestine, especially in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Galilee and the Negev, as well as in the occupied Syrian Golan.


One of the early stages of this government's work is to extend the application of the Israeli Civil Law to settlers in the West Bank. In the first bill presented by the new Israeli government to the deputies for a vote in the first reading, the extension of the “emergency regulations” law in the occupied West Bank, officially known as the “Judea and Samaria” law, which was enacted by the occupation government for the first time in 1967 to regulate the lives of Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories by subjecting them to of Israeli civil laws, as citizens living outside the borders of the state. With the enactment of these laws, it was determined that their validity would be renewed once every five years, so that their enactment would not be considered an established law. On the other hand, the occupation imposes on the approximately 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, laws and military orders. This law is in fact a copy of the "apartheid" laws that were in force in South Africa. The validity date of this law expired last June, but the Bennett-Lapid-Gantz government failed to extend it due to the opposition of the "Benjamin Netanyahu" camp and its refusal to extend these laws, as part of the camp's plan at the time to push the government to resign and advance the date of the Knesset elections. The law was approved again in the first reading, by a majority of 58 votes out of 120 deputies in the Israeli Knesset, despite the availability of a majority of 64 votes for the government coalition. Yesh Atid (Lapid) and the general camp (Benny Gantz) voted for the law. The bill was referred to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to prepare it for its second and third readings. The new Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, celebrated this development and said brazenly that we are starting to believe again in our right to all of the Land of Israel and we are going back to strengthening the settlements in the West Bank.


Handing over vast lands to settlers
And again, the work of the new Israeli government, too, is to plan to hand over to settlers lands in the occupied West Bank that exceed 13,000 dunams, and about 70 buildings in the city of Hebron, claiming that they owned them, or that they were heirs to their owners before the Nakba in 1948. This comes according to the agreement. The coalition between the Likud party and religious Zionism. According to this coalition agreement, the government must instruct the commander of the central region in the occupation army to amend military laws in order to transfer property from the hands of the official in charge of government property in the Civil Administration to the hands of its original owners. This opens the door wide to facilitate the expansion of settlements and the control of buildings that have been rented to Palestinians, as is the case in Hebron, in a policy that smells of racism and does not see that the Palestinians have lands and properties that were controlled by the occupation in Jerusalem, Hebron, and other vast Palestinian areas. It turns out that the areas that are being talked about are located in the area of the settlement bloc "Gush Etzion" in the Bethlehem governorate, and the area north of occupied Jerusalem in Nabi Samuel, Hableh, Battir and Beit Furik, some of which are located in areas classified (B) that are under Palestinian administrative control and Israeli security control. It is run by the "Civil Administration" of the occupation army.


The way is paved for the displacement of the Palestinians
On the other hand, it seems that the way has become paved for large-scale displacement of Palestinians, whether in areas belonging to Jerusalem or others belonging to the Hebron Governorate, despite all international reservations on such steps. Senior officers in the command of the Central Command of the occupation army, such as "Yehuda Fox", began planning to displace villages in the Masafer Yatta area, in the southern Hebron Hills, two months ago, at the initiative of the army and even without the approval of the Israeli government. This displacement plan was presented to the new Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, during his visit to the Central Command headquarters, last week, before it was discussed in the government. Sources estimate that the displacement of the Palestinian population from their villages will take place during the current year. We are talking here about the displacement of 12 villages, not the eight villages included in the last petition submitted by the residents to the Supreme Court. This is being done by claiming that the area was declared a military training area for shooting and that there were no permanent residences in the area two decades ago.
This is in the Hebron governorate. As for the Jerusalem governorate, Hebrew websites have published expectations about the new occupation government’s plan to demolish the Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin community in Jerusalem during the coming period, after the High Occupation Court approved it at the request of the “Regavim” settlement organization, which is headed by the head of the party. Religious Zionism and Finance Minister Smotrich. It is noteworthy that the occupation's haste to implement the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar will pave the way for the implementation of the project to separate the West Bank into two parts and complete the final separation of Jerusalem from the West Bank after the robbery of the so-called "E1", as there is only two and a half weeks left before the deadline set by the court for the demolition of the village of Khan al-Ahmar. On September 29, the Supreme Court issued a conditional order requiring the prime minister and his army minister to appear in court and explain why they did not move to implement the demolition orders issued two years ago against the Palestinian village, and gave them an additional period of time to implement the decision, which ends next February. It is worth noting that Al-Khan Al-Ahmar is surrounded by a number of settlements, as the community is located within the lands targeted by the occupation authorities to implement its settlement project called (E1), which includes the establishment of thousands of settlement units on large areas of Palestinian lands; With the aim of linking the "Ma'ale Adumim" settlement with the city of Jerusalem.


Expansive and continuous settlement activities
At the same time, this government continues to implement the settlement activities that it inherited from the previous government. The occupation forces began placing concrete blocks along the security wall west of the town of Qaffin, north of Tulkarm, to separate thousands of agricultural dunams belonging to Palestinian families from the surrounding villages. This section extends from the village of Salem to the city of Tulkarm, and the concrete wall rises to 9 meters, and is 45 kilometers long. This section of the wall includes fortifications and electronic means. Last November, the Minister of the Occupation Army, Benny Gantz, approved the construction of a new concrete wall in the northern West Bank, with a length of 100 km. Its construction was carried out in stages, and the first stage will extend to approximately 45 km.


Targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque
A dangerous acceleration was also revealed in the excavations carried out by the occupation authorities in the vicinity of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque from the southern and southwestern sides, which threatens the collapse of the foundations of the mosque, its walls, and its ancient buildings. And the Old City, and the northern entrance to Silwan, as evidenced by the presence of workers, equipment, and machinery for excavation work in the targeted area, in addition to unloading and extracting rocks and soil from the bottom of the area. These excavations are supervised by the occupation municipality, the so-called “Wailing Wall Heritage Fund,” and the “Antiquities Authority.” Israeli, and settlement associations, under the administration of the extremist Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir.


outposts
Thousands of settlers also plan to spend the night of the Jewish Passover on the 5th of next April in the outposts of "Homesh" and "Eviatar" and stay there, benefiting from the shift in policy shown by the hard-line government, and they consider it a turning point, especially after the occupation government's intention to cancel major parts of the deconstruction law. Linkage, and the possibility of re-legitimizing the four settlements in the northern West Bank from which Israel withdrew in 2005 (Homesh, Ganim, Kadim, and Sanur). The settlers plan to refuse to leave the two outposts, both of which have a long history of legal battles and previous evictions.

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The National Bureau: The new occupation government is stuck in the challenges of its coalition agreements