Settlement is arrogance and a denial of the rights of the Palestinian people

It is a grave mistake in the policy of the Zionist entity to underestimate its arrogance. Settlement is not only a temporary policy, but rather a plan that Smotrich is quietly implementing. It seems that Israel is rushing time to build more population units in the West Bank, especially in the areas adjacent to the city of Jerusalem. It was recently announced that approximately 600 housing units will be built in Abu Dis, in order to connect the American Street to the Abu Ghneim settlement, but it is also important not to underestimate the construction and paving of bypass roads as a primary goal, firstly, feeding the settlements, and secondly, and this is the most dangerous aspect of all, is dividing the West Bank. The West was divided into isolated areas and small cantons, to prevent communication between the Palestinian regions, and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. These roads, as a colonial structure, contributed to the perpetuation of the dismantling and separation of everything Palestinian, demographically and geographically, and perpetuated the dominance and continuity of Israeli colonialism, which exploited the bypass roads as a colonial tool that contributed to the process of Annexing Palestinian lands and wiping out the Palestinian population. To this day, the construction of Israeli bypass roads in the occupied West Bank (about 938 km in length) has resulted in the confiscation and destruction of thousands of Palestinian dunams, most of which are agricultural lands, for the same purpose.

At that dangerous juncture in the history of Palestine, it should be noted that during the years of Israeli occupation, successive Israeli governments relied on two goals, sometimes contradictory to each other, namely settlement expansion and geographical separation. What is clear from the establishment of settlements is to establish a border belt of settlements parallel to the armistice line, which is primarily a defensive strategic depth, in addition to absorbing and bringing in more Jewish immigrants from the world.

The most dangerous thing about this is that settlement is the cornerstone of Zionist thought, and the basis that the occupation authorities rely on to impose an occupation fait accompli on their successive military expansions. That is, Israeli settlement differs from the forms of colonial settlement that the world has known in the modern era because it is based in justifying its existence on a pragmatic philosophy and religious claim. It adopts a de facto policy supported by military force.

The security wall built by the occupation government in 1994 during the era of Yitzhak Rabin embodies the policy of apartheid pursued by successive Zionist governments. This wall caused great problems for the Palestinian people in terms of dispersing the Palestinian population to strike at their social fabric, in addition to confiscating more lands for the purpose of erecting the wall. Which was built after the outbreak of the second intifada to limit operations within the entity.

It is no exaggeration to say that, throughout the period of the conflict, the form, means and goal of settlement were described as Zionism in action. The construction of settlements is not limited to the function of work alone, but rather it prepares them for the establishment of Zionist settlements on the ruins of Palestinian cities and villages, and the displacement of the original population, as happened after the Nakba in 1948, but today settlement in the West Bank is completely different, as the occupation intends to confiscate agricultural lands and build on them, and build roads, And the establishment of parks and training camps, and this is also at the expense of pastures and agricultural fields from which the Palestinian lives in various areas of the West Bank. In the Jordan Valley, the occupation confiscated approximately 4,000 dunams, which are fertile lands that are considered the basket of the West Bank, and turned these lands into a source of income for the occupation government.

However, the great disease associated with settlement is through the Judaization of the West Bank, and the occupation aims to increase the size of settlements there and in Jerusalem, in order to create a pure environment, as they describe it, which is a homogeneous Jewish society, that is, the search for achieving the Jewish state, because the increasing pace of settlement in the recent period Especially after the formation of the largest extremist government during the era of the entity, which was to achieve what was stipulated in the Talmud and the Torah, the hope of finding a basis to stop settlement with this government remains slim, and this era is different from the previous governments that were formed before that, the difference is that the previous governments were evasive and frozen. Settlement and it was recorded that it evacuated some random settlement blocs, but this was like a show in front of the world.

It can be asserted that the establishment of settlements in all its branches of international law - in addition to the transfer of the population of occupied countries to the occupied territory - contradicts all international principles and the United Nations Charter (the Fourth Geneva Convention on the Laws of War in 1949). The Charter details a long series of prohibitions imposed on the occupying force.

The essence of the Charter in this case is: “The occupier is prohibited from settling his population in the occupied territories.” However, this does not fall on deaf ears among the occupier, and he still rejects all initiatives calling for the resumption of negotiations by various means. It is true that there is a difference between the Israeli government in style and method, but the settlement goal unites them, which is to control the West Bank and Judaize it.