By: Madeeha Araj/ NBPRS/
The National Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that US President Donald Trump’s adviser, Jared Kushner recently announced that Israel won’t annex Palestinian lands before the upcoming Knesset elections, thereby, explained the controversy among Likud, the government, and settlers regarding the annexation projects that the US administration stipulated in the ‘Deal of the Century’. Kushner’s statements came as Netanyahu expressed his willingness to annex Palestinian lands to the Israel before the upcoming Knesset elections scheduled for the 2nd of next March. At the same time, Heads of Settlement Councils demanded during their meeting with Netanyahu to impose Israeli sovereignty over the settlements in the occupied West Bank without coordination with the United States of America.
Moreover, Netanyahu added that the annexation process will take longer time as it requires the demarcation of maps, match them with those contained in the Trump plan, besides the necessity of coordinating them closely with the American Administration. Concurrently, work is going on with the heads of the settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank to ensure that all settlements are included in the decision in accordance with the major plans outlined by the ‘deal of the century,’ and to ensure that these settlement blocs will not be affected by the decision in the long run.
Within the context, the EU’s opposes the annexation of lands in the West Bank to Israel, and affirmed that it does not recognize the Israel’s sovereignty in the areas occupied in 1967, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Syrian Golan Heights. As for the ‘Deal of the Century’, the EU announced that the plan exceeds the agreed upon international standards, and assured that it will continue to support the 2-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Worth mentioning that 100 US Democratic Party Congressmen have expressed their rejection of the “Deal”, and stressed that it will push Israelis and Palestinians toward more conflict, and added that the plan paves the way for Israel to permanent occupy the West Bank, and supports the unilateral annexation of Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley, in return for a dismantled Palestinian State, under Israeli control, and surrounded with settlements.
In parallel, Israel continues the policy of Judaization and Israelization in Jerusalem using various tools, including the Israeli Judiciary, which plays, particularly in Jerusalem, the role of infiltrating of the real-estate that belonging to Palestinians for settlement societies, especially the ‘Ateret Cohenim Settlement Association.’ Israel’s policy in this regard is an extension of the policy of Judaization and Israelization, which it started from the first years of the occupation, where the Judaization of Jerusalem began directly with its occupation in 1967, as Israel started the process of ethnic cleansing in the Moroccan Neighborhood, which was totally wiped out and its residents were replaced by Jewish settlers. On June 27th of the same year, the Israeli Government approved a law annexing East Jerusalem with an area of 70,000 dunums, knowing that its actual area is about 6,000 dunums, besides the annexation of 14 other Palestinian villages, and confiscation of the lands of 29 villages, consequently, Israel doubled the area Jerusalem, when it occupied in 1948.
Within the context of plundering the properties, lands and wealth of our people, the Occupation Authorities began digging a water well in the “Qadumim settlement” named it “Qadumim 1,” and in the village of Jinsafoot, south of Qalqilya, farmers said that they lost their fertile lands as Israel expanded the “Karni Shamorn settlement” in 1978.
Data of the population register for settlers in the West Bank in 2019, revealed that the number of settlers increased by 3.4%, which is twice the rate of population growth in Israel. Knowing that those data do not include the Jews in the occupied Jerusalem and its surroundings, whose number exceeds 300,000 settlers.
Within the context, a former member of the Knesset, and former prof. of political science at the Hebrew University, Dr. Ofer Kassiv directed unusual and unprecedented criticism after he likened Israel to Nazi-Germany, and as a State on a slope that quickly slips toward fascism. Also, the Israeli Historian Prof. Daniel Baltman described the rabbi of the settlement of Yitzhar, David Dod Kibbits’ statements he made during the funeral of settler Itamar Ben Gal in 2018, in which he called for the extermination of the Palestinian people, as an incitement to kill a people. He described the Palestinians’ lives in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as catastrophic, adding they are humiliated, stylized, and imprisoned in an overcrowded ghetto. There houses are being raided, their children terrorized, living a very miserable conditions, and being shot by the Israeli soldiers.
