1917 - Britain promised Palestine to the fundamentalist Jewish Zionists
1947 - Britain hands over half of Palestine to the fundamentalist Zionists who ethnically cleanse half the indigenous Palestinian population. 500 Palestinian villages and towns are either erased from the map or are re-named with new Hebrew names for new foreign settlers.
1967 - Zionists take Jerusalem, Gaza and West Bank. More indigenous Palestinians are expelled to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. More foreign migrants and settlers continue arriving to dislodge Palestinians from their ancestral homes and lands to build new settlements. Secular Palestinians begin organizing their resistance. They are branded communists, anarchists and terrorists.
~1990s - 2000s: The promises made by Israel to the secular Palestinian resistance in the Oslo Accords are not kept by the fundamentalist Zionists who keep stealing land, expelling indigenous people from their homes and making life very miserable for them in the hope that they will "voluntarily transfer" out of Palestine. Secular Palestinian resistance against ultra-religious Jewish Zionists having failed, Palestinians turn to fundamentalist Islam as way to rally the Muslim world to their cause. Again, they are branded fanatics, radicals and terrorists.
2017 - Jerusalem is made capital of the ever-expanding Jewish colony in Palestine. The US colluder in the rape of Palestine moves its embassy to Jerusalem.
2024 - The Islamic fundamentalist resistance to Jewish fundamentalist Israel culminates in the Hamas attack of October 2023 and the ensuing Gaza genocide war. Having nearly completely destroyed Gaza and vainly trying to demoralize the indigenous Palestinians of Gaza to make them "voluntarily transfer" (i.e. self-ethnic cleansing), the Jewish fundamentalist Zionists have now turned to the West Bank.
The opportunity to claim self-defense does not often present itself. The Hamas attack of October 7 was a golden opportunity for the Jewish fundamentalist terrorists to complete their ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine and establish their pure Jewish supremacist state free of any other subhuman species.
The West Bank as we speak is being turned into another Gaza: indiscriminate destruction of infrastructure and killing of hundreds of indigenous people, demolition of homes, rampages through indigenous villages, burning of olive groves.... Again, in the hope that the West Bank Palestinians will "voluntarily transfer" to Jordan.
The fundamentalist Jewish Zionists know there is a line they cannot cross: A sudden massive forced eviction of the entire indigenous population (~6 millions) is likely to cause international condemnation and intervention. But a slow-simmering, beneath the radar, step-by-step approach will, they hope, not attract much attention.
Just as they did in 1947 when the Jewish terrorist forces - having been trained in Nazi Europe during WWII - raped, pillaged, plundered, killed, and rampaged their way through Palestine, they claimed that the indigenous Palestinians "left of their own will" to live in tents and refugee camps. The same United Nations resolution that "created" out of absolute artifice a Jewish state where none existed in Palestine for 3 millennia, also demanded the return of the refugees back to their homes and villages. But "Israel" wouldn't let them. It stole the land and intends on keeping it.
That is exactly what it is doing today to complete Herzl's business plan. But now is not 1947 where even televisions didn't exist. Now there are cell phones and cameras and Internet everywhere and it is very difficult for the fundamentalist European Jews to lie as they did during most of the 20th century. That is why they are using the "self-defense" pretext. But how can an invading colonial foreign criminal claim self-defense against the indigenous owner of the land whom it is killing and whose land it is stealing?
If allowed to proceed, Israel would have erased Palestine from the map. The Al-Aqsa Mosque will be demolished to be replaced by a new Jewish Temple to replace the one from the Bronze Age. Anyone shocked by the barbarity and primitiveness of such an idea?. Zion will then be ready to receive the fucking Messiah: a brand new one for the Jewish fundamentalists, or the return of the old Bronze Age one for the Christian fundamentalists.
How can any reasonable 21st century person, with a dubious attitude toward religious backwardness, accept this history of forcibly replacing one cohesive homogeous indigenous Palestinian people by another heterogenous assortment of a foreign colonial pseudo-people, solely on the basis of a manuscript written by ignorant Arab nomads in the desert thousands of years ago?
This moment in history must be remembered well, especially by those who are patting the criminals and ethnic cleansers on the back, and who applaud the extermination of a native indigenous population.
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As the world focuses on Gaza, the West Bank has reached boiling point. Here’s what to know
Kara Fox, CNN
Fri, August 30, 2024
Israel’s assault on Gaza since the Hamas-led October 7 attack has killed more than 40,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities, drawing international condemnation. But just 60 miles away, another major escalation of violence has also been playing out in the West Bank, where more than 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops since the war began.
On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it began an expansive offensive in the occupied West Bank, launching raids and airstrikes in densely populated civilian areas in Jenin and Tulkarem that have killed at least 15 people so far.
The attacks are occurring amid a surge in Israeli settler violence across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, where some settlers continue a campaign targeting Palestinian civilians and infrastructure.
Israel says its military operation in the West Bank is necessary to stem further terror attacks on its territory. Palestinian leaders say the violence will only lead to “dire and dangerous results.” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to immediately cease its operation, saying it was a “deeply concerning” development.
As Israel signals its operation is only just getting started, here’s what you need to know about the occupied territory and why bloodshed is escalating there.
What is the West Bank and who controls it?
The West Bank, a territory that lies between Israel and Jordan, is home to 3.3 million Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation as well as hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis who began settling there some 57 years ago.
Israel began its occupation after the 1967 Six-Day War, where it captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel argues that Jews have a biblical and ancestral right to the land.
Soon after, it began establishing Israeli communities in those territories. The West Bank remains where the bulk of those settlements, illegal under international law, are.
In the 1990s, Israel and Palestinian factions began a peace process with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state. That process, known as the Oslo Accords, led to the creation of an interim Palestinian government known as the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, with nominal control over the West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks have been frozen for years and the current Israeli government has ruled out granting independence to the Palestinians.
Today, the PA has administrative and security control of 18% of the West Bank, while 22% is under joint Israeli and PA control. Israel has sole control over the remaining 60%, where most of Jewish settlements are.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. In 2007, Hamas seized control of that territory after winning elections.
In July, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top court, issued an unprecedented advisory opinion that found Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal, and called on Israel to end its decades-long occupation.
Who are the settlers in the West Bank?
There are more than 700,000 settlers living in the West Bank, the presence of every one of them considered illegal under international law.
They are spread across 146 settlements throughout the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem. The vast majority of settlements are built by government order, but some unauthorized settlements, known as settlement outposts, have been established by ideologically driven Israeli civilians with the hope that they will one day be authorized by the government.
Many of the settlements encroach on Palestinian villages and, in some cases, privately owned Palestinian land. Some are built in close proximity to Palestinian population centers and one, in Hebron, sits in the heart of a Palestinian town. In East Jerusalem, there are 14 Israeli neighborhoods, which the international community considers illegal.
The expansion of settlements has been a top priority for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which has supercharged the approval of land seizures in the West Bank during its tenure, despite human rights groups calling it a war crime.
In July, Israel approved the largest seizure of land in the West Bank since the Oslo peace process, according to the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog PeaceNow.
The settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are seen as a major obstacle to peace as they sit on land that Palestinians, along with the international community, view as territory for a future Palestinian state.
What has been happening in the West Bank since the war began?
Tensions have been rising in the West Bank for many years, but October 7 has ushered in a volatile new chapter in the occupied territory.
On that day, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages, according to the Israeli authorities. Israel subsequently launched a war in Gaza that has killed 40,476 people, according to Palestinian authorities.
Since the start of the war, 652 Palestinians have also been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 150 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Over 5,400 people have been injured.
The violence has been especially stark for children, according to the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), who said in an August report that the number of Palestinian children in the West Bank who have been killed by Israeli forces’ bullets nearly tripled in a year.
Meanwhile, settler attacks have been unfolding for months without significant consequence or accountability.
In February, hundreds of settlers carried out one of the largest attacks on Palestinians in years in the town of Huwara and surrounding areas after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers who lived nearby. In the aftermath of the violence, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler who opposes Palestinian sovereignty, said that “Huwara needs to be erased.”
Earlier this month, more than 70 armed settlers invaded the town of Jit, firing bullets and tear gas at Palestinian residents and setting several homes, cars and other property on fire. One person was killed. The attacks drew condemnation from top Israeli officials, but far-right members of Netanyahu’s government and settlement leaders deflected blame away from the settlers.
A girl comforts the mother of a 23-year-old Palestinian man who was killed during an attack by settlers on the residents of Jit, a town in the occupied West Bank, earlier in August. - Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images
In total, at least 1,270 settler attacks against Palestinians have been recorded since October 7, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Of those, over 120 attacks “led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries,” OCHA reported.
Meanwhile, the United States, Israel’s strongest military and diplomatic backer, imposed a series of sanctions this year on Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank, blocking their financial assets and barring them from entering the US.
“The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel’s own security,” the US State Department said in a statement last month.
Who is the current Israeli military campaign targeting in the West Bank?
Israel launched a large counter-terror operation in the areas of Jenin and Tulkarem on Wednesday, where authorities said that over “150 shooting and explosive attacks” have originated in the last year.
Israel claims that the northern West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarem, has seen a rise in Palestinian militant groups, bolstered by what it says is an Iranian campaign to distribute weapons there.
Local militias are also gaining traction in the northern West Bank, groups largely comprised of disillusioned young men that have grown up under the Israeli occupation and who deeply resent the unpopular PA, which is seen as aiding the Israeli occupation and unable to protect them from it.
The PA condemned “violation and crimes” by Israel on Wednesday, “especially the ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip and the targeting of the northern West Bank.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group condemned the Israeli military’s “comprehensive aggression,” referring to it as an “open and undeclared war.”
On Thursday, the IDF said that it killed five militants, including Muhhamad Jabber, a commander affiliated with the PIJ’s military wing, the Al-Quds brigade.
CNN’s Abbas Al Lawati and Abeer Salman contributed reporting.
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