Dispossessed

While global attention remains fixed – yet helpless – by the horrors of the genocide in Gaza, a quieter but equally bedeviled Israeli plan is being implemented in the occupied West Bank. Under the fog of war, and aided by a willful placid Western media – Israel has intensified a second front of dispossession: bulldozing homes, and displacing families to reshape the demography in the West Bank. Armed Jewish settler mobs – Zionist Youth – have been unleashed, burning homes, olive groves, torching cars, and killing Palestinians, including American citizens.

Last February, bulldozers stormed the village of Khalet Al-Dab in Masafer Yatta, razing nine homes, leaving residents searching for their belongings amidst dust and rubble. Israel claimed those structures were supposedly built in an area designated as a closed military zone.

Palestinian-owned land is routinely seized by Israel under the pretext of being closed military zones. And, nearly every Jewish-only colony is built on these same “closed military zones,” later rezoned exclusively for Jewish civilian use. This Zio deception is not about land management; it’s about “legalizing” ethnic cleansing, cloaked in bureaucracy and executed by American-made Caterpillar bulldozers.

In the refugee camps of Tulkarm and Jenin in the northern West Bank, the campaign is more militarized but equally destructive. Since January, Israel’s so-called “Operation Iron Wall” has turned the camps into war zones. Organized demolitions have leveled entire neighborhoods forcing people from their homes. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned that Israeli actions are not just displacing people but attempting to permanently alter the character of the camps. As a result, 40,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced. Camps like Nur Shams near Tulkarem and the Jenin camp have been turned into ghost towns.

Much of this demolition campaign is taking place in Area A, which under the Oslo Accords, is meant to be under full civil and security control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Yet the PA remains conspicuously impassive as Israeli bulldozers tear through homes in the refugee camps. Instead of asserting its jurisdiction, the PA appears paralyzed – or simply too reluctant, obviously fearing a confrontation with the occupation forces might jeopardize the Israeli-issued VIP passes to its leadership.

Meanwhile, the world is paralyzed by apathy. And Western media – despite having less restrictions in the West Bank – barely report critically on these immoral policies. This self-censorship is not due to lack of access, but rather a deeply embedded moral blind spot. Even when the media report, their coverage is often watered down. For instance, they use passive language, such as depicting recent lynching of Palestinian American, Sayfollah Musallet, by Israeli settlers, as merely “died.” Western media normalize the violence of the settler mobs by adopting Israeli hasbara and using oblique lingo – portraying these attacks as “clashes.” This insidious framing creates a false equivalence between the armed Jewish settlers and unarmed Palestinian farmers and villagers.

We witnessed the same indifference in the lead-up to October 7. Israel had imposed decades of a crippling siege on Gaza where its population was subjected to a starvation diet – euphemistically and cynically referred to by Israeli officials as a “calorie diet.” In the West Bank, Palestinians have been treated like slaves, prevented from reaching their farms, murdered, and arrested. The global outrage comes to life only after Israeli blood is spilled. And then, suddenly, the timeline begins.

Excerpted: ‘Gaza and the West Bank, Two Fronts of Dispossession’. Courtesy: Counterpunch.org