Settlement, deterrence and the new strategic environment

A few days ago, an Israeli settler named Meir Tamari (32 years old), from Hermish settlement, surrounding the city of Tulkarm, was killed as a result of an ambush and shooting at his vehicle, which led to his immediate death.

Immediately after that, large forces of the Israeli army stormed the town of Qafin, amidst Apache helicopters, and the army set up roadblocks and announced the alert of its forces in search of the shooters.

A wide media alert was declared among the settlers, as the Israeli media described this settler as a victim who abandoned his two children, at the age of three and one, and began to pressure the government to respond and take revenge harshly on the Palestinian residents who live near Hermish settlement, and media sources reported Also, some of the residents of this settlement attacked Palestinian residents passing near the main road leading to Tulkarem, and the Israeli media showed widespread solidarity with the settlers and their demands, as it was mentioned that this dead settler had come from central Israel and linked his fate to an Israeli settler who lived in Harmish and married her. .

This settlement was established in 1984 in the north of Tulkarm

On an area of ​​​​hundreds of dunums of the lands of the towns of Qaffin and Nazla al-Sharqiya in the Tulkarm governorate, the Israeli authorities seek to control more than 5,000 new dunums for the purposes of expanding this settlement.

The population of Harmish settlement was about 228 in 2018.

This settlement reality explains the new policy, plan and strategy of this extreme right-wing government of Israel, which seeks to construct a wide border strip from Tulkarm to the northern West Bank, that is, passing through Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin, and then push the Palestinian population into the interior and force them to give up their homes and lands. This Judaization and settlement seeks to convince the Palestinians of the inevitability of the inability to establish an independent Palestinian entity between the Israeli borders and the Jordan River, and if the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank has reached more than half a million, according to an official report published by the "Jewish Population Statistics in the West Bank" in January. January 2023, an increase of about 3% annually and more. As for this current government, the majority of its ministers are settlers who live in the settlements adjacent to Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus, it will try to double these numbers and increase about 50,000 settlers per year, or about 200,000 settlers, in the next four years. To take over this settlement government.

The decision to increase settlements in the West Bank is considered a theoretical decision in the first place, as it directs a number of serious structural problems that could impede the achievement of this goal, as this will be done only in a situation and an environment in which political calm prevails, which does not exist in the first place.

Several months ago, US National Security Adviser Jack Saliban and CIA chief William G. Barnes warned Israel that the Israeli policy of repression and violations in the West Bank would lead to a third intifada. The Palestinians and the daily raids in all areas of the West Bank..in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem, with an emphasis on the night and daily raids on the camps of Jenin Askar, Nur Shams and Aqabat Jabr, so that the Palestinians are waking up daily to these daily operations that target young men who are killed under the pretext that they are wanted by the Israeli forces They are executed directly in their homes and camps, and they do not receive any coverage or sympathy in the Israeli media, as was the case for the settler Meir Tamari from Harmish, where murder and assassination have become a daily act carried out by the Israeli forces in these areas without any local or international deterrence, as Netanyahu continues to brag and give the impression that he He wants to deepen normalization with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a continuation of the Abraham Accords with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco.

I would like to point out that the number of Palestinian martyrs may reach, by the end of this year, more than five hundred Palestinians who are executed annually in the vicinity of their environment, in addition to the high percentage of prisoners who are imprisoned in Israeli prisons.

Just a month ago, in early May 2023 in particular, the Israeli government canceled the unilateral withdrawal agreement in the northern West Bank in 2005, which approved the cancellation of any step related to the establishment of settlements in this area, but this current settlement government announced the construction of new settlements in the north of the West Bank. The West Bank, that is, in the area adjacent to the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where it was announced only this week that the religious school, Homesh, would be established.

The new law allows settlers to return to these dismantled settlements, by canceling the criminal punishment imposed under the "disengagement" law on those who enter or reside in those four settlements, which are located on private Palestinian land.

The return of these settlers to the Palestinian cities and villages adjacent to those settlements is tantamount to declaring war on the Palestinian population there, as this matter will increase the daily friction and clash between the two parties. New settlement outposts, and some of them are also calling for the return of the settlements from which the Israeli army withdrew in the Gaza border, but the missile deterrence force in Gaza prevents this government from thinking about rebuilding the settlements bordering Gaza. Here and there are some military analysts who say that the daily attacks and incursions into the Palestinian areas Its aim is not only to deter and intimidate the Palestinians and inflict the harshest punishments on them, but to bring the Israeli army into a permanent state of military readiness to confront a large-scale Palestinian uprising with multiple axes and conflict points that could erupt in the West Bank, Lebanon, Gaza and Syria.

In the face of this dangerous geostrategic reality that Israel has fallen into, and of which the US military and security leadership has warned, researchers and political analysts do not know where that government is heading in its policy in the West Bank. complete and absolute usable lands from the lands of the West Bank, without taking into account any representative leadership and even the Palestinian Authority, which could reach a real impasse that leads to political chaos similar to what is happening in many countries, in addition to what is happening inside Israel. Incompatibility and constitutional strategic disagreement at all levels. As for the question that arises, it is the frequency of these military interventions and incursions and the extent of reaction and resistance to them, in addition to what is happening inside Israel, and the impact of all this on the international level and on the Arab level that is preoccupied with matters that no one knows what they are.