{"id":11846,"date":"2023-11-30T00:15:20","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T05:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=11846"},"modified":"2023-12-06T23:36:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T04:36:04","slug":"report-from-the-west-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/11\/report-from-the-west-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Report from the West Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>hile the eyes of the world are correctly focused on the genocide in Gaza, the occupied West Bank has also erupted in a calamitous escalation of horrific settler violence, Israeli repression, and heroic resistance. The situation is critical.<\/p>\n

For years now, leading up to October 7<\/a>, the West Bank has been ready to explode. While the violent machinations of Israeli settler colonialism have rapidly intensified, its trajectory has been developing for years. In the occupied West Bank, Israel is using the pretext of its genocidal war on Gaza to speed up its policy of annexation. Israel seeks to break the steadfast resistance of Palestinians that continues to rage against the walls of the Oslo prison.<\/p>\n

In the West Bank, there have been regular and consistent outbursts of resistance that encompass a broad demographic of Palestinians living under occupation. These can be traced back to the \u201cKnife Intifada<\/a>\u201d of 2015 that started among young people many of whom were children or had not yet been born at the time of the Second Intifada. Despite the impasse of the political factions, people took action, often in unorganized, asymmetrical ways, in response to the entrenchment of the surrender of Oslo. The most developed of these surges of resistance was the Unity Intifada<\/a> of 2021<\/a> in which all of historic Palestine rose up. Since 2021 there have been outbursts<\/a> every few months<\/a> that were repressed by the Palestinian Authority<\/a> (PA) or quashed by the Israelis.<\/p>\n

\"A
Protests in Bilin 2010. At this time, after Friday noon prayers, villages throughout the West Bank dramatically and theatrically confronted the occupation, including challenging the Israeli diamond trade, which accounted for one third of Israel’s export economy. Photo<\/a> by scottmontreal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last year these outbursts became larger<\/a> and included the formation of new armed resistance groups in the cities of Nablus, Jenin, al-Khalil (Hebron), and Tulkarem. These are all places where the most substantial Israeli invasions took place during the Second Intifada. These new formations are different from those of the Second Intifada in that they are multi-party brigades organized locally. They have engaged in more daring resistance acts and have endured violent attempts to repress them<\/a> and murder their leadership.<\/p>\n

On the Israeli side, the far right has been advancing and settler violence has been increasing. Itamar Ben-Gvir\u2019s<\/a> rise in the government has given the settler organizations a go-ahead in a way that has not been seen before.\u00a0 Even prior to October 7, they have become more bold in assaulting<\/a> Palestinian villages and occupying Palestinian land. Events, like those in Huwara<\/a>, have become more and more common. In that village, in February 2023, settler organizations carried out what an Israeli general described as \u201ca pogrom\u201d with the support of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). In response, Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Minister of Finance, publicly stated<\/a> that \u201cHuwara needs to be erased\u201d giving a green light to settler violence. The whole situation has been ready to explode.<\/p>\n

In the last seven weeks, using the pretext of October 7 and the Israeli\u2019s subsequent genocidal assault on Gaza, the settler violence in the West Bank has evolved from first uncoordinated acts of revenge to an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing. This involves the intimidation and murder of Palestinians and systematic arson and property destruction. Settlers will enter into Palestinian towns and set them on fire, then set up roadblocks and randomly shoot at Palestinian cars (Palestinian and Israeli cars have color-coded license plates).<\/p>\n

In dozens of villages<\/a>, like in Wadi al-Siq, armed settler organizations have literally driven out entire communities of Palestinians to steal their land under threat of death and force of arms. In the town of Qusra<\/a>, settlers attacked and killed four Palestinians then returned the following day and attacked the funeral killing two more. All of this is happening during the olive harvesting season during which settler violence often increases because Palestinians have to travel away from the town centers in order to carry out the harvest.<\/p>\n

Resistance<\/h4>\n

Three years ago, during the massive Unity Intifada<\/a>, many people thought: \u201chere it is, the Third Intifada we have been waiting for, that we have been building towards.\u201d But it wasn\u2019t. It was a very significant, special event but it was not \u201cthe thing\u201d that the people had been waiting for. It did not spread and sustain enough to reconfigure the political moment. The need\u2014that some expressed<\/a> at the time<\/a>\u2014to cohere a new revitalized political charter for liberation did not have time to coalesce in a real way due to a variety of factors, Israeli repression chief among them.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, when October 7 transpired everyone was astonished, surprised, proud, anxious, a whole spectrum of feeling. And then everyone started moving, all the different elements that had taken part in different uprisings, different acts of resistance, over different timelines in the past few years, started working together. This was because: 1) the mass bombardment of Gaza created an urgent need; and 2) people saw the opportunity to do something to try to change the status quo; and 3) anything we could do might help take some of the pressure off Gaza where Israel shifted a massive focus of the IOF. After the first three days, there were mass demonstrations and a few small acts of armed resistance. This has increased as the brutality in Gaza became more intense. In all the cities of the West Bank there have seen daring resistance acts and a flourishing of every kind of tactic\u2014armed and peaceful \u2014with all the players doing the same thing: resisting. The Palestinian Information Center<\/a> said there were two thousand resistance acts in the West Bank in this past month alone, over six hundred were armed resistance acts.<\/p>\n

Israel has responded by carrying out proactive mass arrest campaigns in the West Bank that are so broad that it is easier to list who was NOT arrested. Israeli mass raids basically round up and arrest whole villages, the whole student union, and give them all administrative detention for six months while Israel determines how to respond. They want to take anyone who they think might do anything to resist. But of course \u201canyone who might resist\u201d is basically everyone. Prominent activists like Iyad Burna<\/a>, have been arrested, and political activists whom we know sleep with their clothes and shoes on in anticipation of being raided in the middle of the night. These acts of collective punishment have inflamed things even more.<\/p>\n

And while the release of political prisoners accompanying the temporary pause in Israel\u2019s genocide is being met with great joy and elation, even if all 150 Palestinians are reunited with their families, it is a drop in the bucket in Israel\u2019s carceral regime. And the cost has been great. Even the conditions of their release reflect the tension in the West Bank as Palestinians awaiting the return of their loved ones at Ofer prison have been greeted with tear gas and shooting.<\/p>\n