Welcome to the Wild West Bank

Forget for a while the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Iran. Ignore the attendance of President Muhammed Morsi, the first visit to Tehran by an Egyptian president in 33 years. Forget the fact that he used the occasion to denounce Iran’s regional protégé, Syria, for its brutal repression of its population. Forget them all for the moment, and spare a thought for the rampant lawlessness engulfing the occupied Palestinian territories.

One day before the summit, a spate of media reports from Palestine read like this: the occupation closes 13 artesian wells in Kufr Dan, west of Jenin; Israeli court orders fourth demolition of Palestinian home, south Bethlehem; occupation forces bulldoze agricultural land in Selfeet to expand settlement; occupation forces post demolition notices on the doors of five Palestinian homes in Al Bustan district, East Jerusalem; Israeli military erects new checkpoint at the entrance of Al Khidr municipality, south Bethlehem; settlers burn three Palestinian cars in Hebron and scrawl racist graffiti on them.

The list is by no means exhaustive, nor did it represent some fleeting indiscretions. It reflects only a fraction of what occurs every day. Last year, the UN reported 300 settler attacks on Palestinian property, including the destruction of or damage to 10,000 trees belonging to Palestinian farmers. The American journal Foreign Affairs, in its September/October 2012 edition, recalls that the doubling of Israeli settler attacks between 2009 and 2011 coincided with a dramatic fall in “Palestinian terrorism”.

While this development may seem illogical there are obvious reasons for it. Without the approval, tacit or otherwise of the Israeli government, this campaign of terror by Jewish settlers could not take place. The notion that these attacks are the work of a few deranged social outcasts is pure deceit given the intimate and very cosy links between the government and settlers’ groups. Was it not the same settlers who voted for the present Likud-led government? How can the government which threatens to bomb Iran lack the capability to rein in its own citizens from terrorising Palestinians and defiling their places of worship?

The interface between settlers and government was flaunted this week when the Likud parliamentarian Danny Danon told Israel Radio that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to adopt the recommendations of the Commission which was set up to examine the status of building settlements in “Judea and Samaria”, and headed by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy. The Commission reported that “Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria”, a euphemism for the brutally-occupied West Bank. It stated further that “classical laws” of “occupation”, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, do not apply to the Palestinian territories because Israelis have a historical and legal right to settle in their “ancient Jewish homeland”.

Clearly emboldened by this legal quirk, Netanyahu visited the Efrat settlement and reaffirmed that both Efrat and the neighbouring Gush Etzion settlements would remain “part of Israel” because they constitute Israel’s southern gateway to Greater Jerusalem. Prior to the Israeli conquest of 1967, Jerusalem spanned just six square kilometres. Israel has since expanded its area ten-fold, stretching from Ma’ale Adumin in the east to Wallaja village in the west and from the Qalandiya Crossing in the north to Efrat in the south; it incorporates in the process 28 Palestinian villages which have been declared unilaterally to be part of “Greater Jerusalem”.

After failing to make any progress through negotiations, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to launch yet another initiative in the UN General Assembly. His aides claim that if membership is granted, Palestine will be able to challenge Israel’s violations in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Not surprisingly, the US has communicated its opposition in the manner that it does best. Wasel Abu Yusuf, a member the PLO’s executive, confirmed that Washington delivered an official warning to Abbas that it would cut financial aid to the PA if he resorts to the UN. Last year the Obama administration found itself in the embarrassing position of lobbying UN member states on behalf of Israel. They tried so hard to thwart the Palestinian effort that one American diplomat complained, “Sometimes I felt like I work for the Israeli government”.

Two months before presidential elections the last thing Barack Obama needs is another humiliation and further isolation of America on the world stage. Abbas must now make the choice between international political support and US economic backing.

As for the two and a half million Palestinians in the Wild West Bank (occupied Jerusalem included), they have no other choice but to protect themselves and their property. Qais Abdul Karim, a legislature member for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said as much when he called on locals to form defence committees in all parts of the occupied territories.

When the Zionist enterprise was launched more than 100 years ago its leaders promised to form in Palestine a rampart of Europe and “an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism”. Europeans must now search their consciences and ask if what Israel is doing really represents their civilisation. Since the answer is well known, they must repudiate this reign of terror that has dehumanised both the colonised and the colonisers.