UA “status quo” as deceitful as it is convenient for diplomacy lacking in political will is being shattered in the occupied West Bank. To increasingly deadly raids by the Israeli army, which began long before the most right-wing coalition in the history of the Jewish state came to power, and to attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers , including in the eastern part of Jerusalem, was added on February 26 a massive punitive expedition of Israeli settlers against the Palestinian village of Huwara. This descent, rare its magnitude, came after the murder of two Israelis. It took place under the eyes of an army complicit in its passivity.
The most dramatic turning point, however, did not occur on the ground but in the arbitration rendered on February 23 by the Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, in favor of his finance minister. Bezalel Smotrich, a pure product of colonization, obtained for the first time that civilian guardianship be recognized for the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and for the administration of a large part of the daily life of the Palestinians in these territories.
The Minister of Finance thus broke the monopoly that the army had had there until now, in various forms, since the military conquest of 1967. According to the terms of this arbitration, which has not been fully made public, Bezalel Smotrich will henceforth oversee all settlement-related activities. This guardianship must also allow, in the long term, the equal application for Israeli citizens of the laws in force in Israel regardless of their place of residence.
This result sounds like a spectacular revenge for an ideological current which had experienced as a trauma the evacuation ordered in 2005 by the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, of all the settlements in Gaza and four others in the West Bank.
Dream of a “Greater Israel”
The transfer of skills from the occupying army, supposed to remain temporary according to international law, to an elected representative of the government, constitutes in itself an affirmation of Israeli sovereignty. It bears witness to the reality of the balance of power between the far-right bloc and a prime minister who is obliged to it, and it constitutes a powerful call for air in favor of colonization.
Also listen In Israel, the extreme right in power
The multiplication of the accomplished facts that these concessions will allow could accelerate the annexation of whole sections of the occupied West Bank, without it even being necessary to proclaim it. Bezalel Smotrich takes no one by surprise. His electoral program set precisely this objective, which is that of “Greater Israel”, from the shore of the Mediterranean to that of the Jordan, dreamed of for decades by the extreme right.
It took the images of the destruction of Huwara and a verbal outburst from the minister, believing that the army should ” to shave “ the village so that the Palestinian question invites itself into the massive mobilization underway in Israel against the reform of the judicial system, also defended by the coalition of Benyamin Netanyahu.
The two courses actively pursued by the Israeli far right and a good part of the nationalist right, the muzzling of institutions and excessive colonization, are nevertheless intimately linked because they also shatter the democratic nature of the State. Hebrew.