By Dana El Kurd
With violence and destruction raging in southern Israel and Gaza, there has been less attention on the worsening violence in the West Bank, the other half of the occupied territories.
Since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the onset of Israel’s war in Gaza, Israelis and Palestinians have been thrust back into the headlines. Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7 and took more than 200 hostages; Israelis have killed at least 11,000 Palestinians in a response that has sparked a debate about whether what the world is witnessing amounts to war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Before Oct. 7, West Bank Palestinians were already experiencing the highest level of settler violence since 2006.
Israeli settlers, empowered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, have increased their attacks on and harassment of Palestinian rural communities since the start of the war. This is often done with the backing of the Israeli military, as Israeli soldiers stand guard, preventing a Palestinian response. Sometimes, the attacks take place with the military’s involvement.
The United Nations has recorded over 200 settler attacks in the past month. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem reports that since the start of the war, 16 villages and their 880 Palestinian residents have been completely displaced as a result of these attacks; 180 Palestinians have been killed and 64 injured. Over 2,000 Palestinians have been arrested. Videos of their mistreatment and torture have gone viral.
The escalation of violence in the West Bank is neither arbitrary nor disconnected from the violence in Gaza. Instead, as a political scientist who studies Palestinian politics, I believe it should be understood in the broader context. The proliferation of armed settlers in the West Bank, the expansion of illegal settler outposts and now the increasing violence and forced displacement all stem from the same underlying policy that led to the 16-year blockade of Gaza: an Israeli policy of ignoring Palestinian national claims altogether.
This policy disregards political solutions and pursues violent ones. The policy has not just taken hold in Israel but has been facilitated by American and Arab support.
Surrender or transfer
Israel’s policy entails building new settlements in order to “abort” the Palestinian state, in the words of influential right-wing cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself. This happens as the Israeli government facilitates fragmented governance between the West Bank and Gaza. The goal: Impose a “surrender or transfer” ultimatum on the Palestinian people.
The Israeli policy is to simply disregard any Palestinian claims to a national home and instead support settler violence to further Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land. It is a policy of nonengagement with the issues animating the conflict, relying on coercion to achieve Israeli goals of full annexation.
The surrender or transfer proposal in particular comes from Smotrich, who outlined these ideas in his 2017 Decisive Plan. The phrase “surrender or transfer” means Palestinians would have to give up the hope that they can have their own national identity, state or even equal rights. If they refuse to surrender to this reality, then they will be forced to leave. Palestinians in the territories, many of them already refugees, would be expelled into neighboring countries – not with the approval of anyone in those countries, however.
Smotrich’s 2017 proposal laid out his plans and worldview, and while the Israeli government has not officially adopted the “Decisive Plan,” Smotrich and his allies are now in government. This has meant that the plan has been a de facto adopted plan by key ministries in the government.
In particular, Smotrich, as retired Israel Maj. Gen. Yaakov Or wrote, can “allocate the vast resources necessary to put his plan into practice.” The results over the past two years are clear. Illegal outposts have been quickly authorized and large budgets approved for the creation of supporting infrastructure. When settlers engaged in pogroms in West Bank villages, Smotrich went on record that these villages should indeed be wiped out – not by vigilantes but by the state itself.
When the peace process is discussed, the Israeli government states there is no partner for peace and that the Palestinians are unable to govern themselves.
This narrative suits the overarching goal of ignoring Palestinian aspirations. Netanyahu and members of his cabinet have even referred to Hamas as an “asset” because it acts as a counterweight to other Palestinian political figures. Hamas’ ideological positions then lend credence to the idea that a peace process is impossible.
Spreading Smotrich’s ideas
Israeli human rights activist Orly Noy has recently warned that these ideas – ignoring Palestinian aspirations and dealing with the conflict only by force – have permeated Israeli society, calling it the “Smotrichization” of Israeli politics.
Many within Israel, Noy argues, believe that the conflict with Palestinians can be managed through sheer coercion. An “inferior, de-Palestinianized existence” was, until Oct. 7, “most Israelis’ chosen option.” Furthermore, Noy wrote in a recent magazine article, “Expelling Gaza’s population makes perfect sense to most Israelis.” Thus, Palestinian “refusal to submit to the might of the Israeli regime is perceived as an existential threat and a sufficient reason for their annihilation.”
As a result of Smotrichization, there is very little room or opportunity today for those who advocate for a peaceful future, a shared future or both.
A small minority of Palestinians hold Israeli citizenship, accounting for 20% of the Israeli population. These citizens have been uniquely targeted, facing a “severe crackdown on their freedoms of expression and assembly,” according to Adalah, an organization that provides legal representation to Israel’s Arab citizens. The Israeli left and critics of the government have also faced efforts to restrict their speech.
US and Arab role
The U.S. and its regional allies have also ignored Palestinian aspirations and meaningful progress on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Instead, they’ve opted for policies that sideline Palestinians and bypass the issues animating continued violence.
Normalization of diplomatic and trade relations between Arab states and Israel has become the focus of both the Trump and Biden Middle East policies. Such deals are the clearest manifestation of ignoring Palestinian aspirations, beginning with the Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” proposal and the Abraham Accords, and then with the Biden administration’s Negev Summit and continued push for Israeli-Saudi normalization.
Unlike the Israeli government, U.S. administrations and Arab regimes likely want to avoid large-scale forced displacement of Palestinians, which would undoubtedly destabilize the region. Arab officials have made this clear in recent weeks, especially after Israel floated the idea of moving displaced Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula.
Nevertheless, normalization deals have provided the Israeli government with unspoken permission to continue aggressive settlement policies, without concern over international backlash.
These deals, touted by the U.S. and others as symbols of progress in a conflict-filled region, also strengthened the impression among Israeli society and politicians that Israel can continue to ignore the issue of Palestinians and their unmet national claims.
From the Israeli perspective, even Arab regimes had proven willing to ignore the Palestinian issue, normalize relations in spite of illegal settlement activity and suppress pro-Palestine sentiment in their own countries. There were no regional or international incentives for Israel to change the policy.
This thought process was made clear in a February 2023 interview with Netanyahu. No one, he said, should “get hung up on” the issue of peace with Palestinians.
His logic was clear: “I went around them (Palestinians), I went directly to the Arab states and forged a new concept of peace.”
This “new concept of peace” is not what regular people would think of as peace, which entails ending conflict. Instead, it’s what political scientists like me call “authoritarian conflict management.” This conflict management is described by scholars David Lewis, John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran as one that ignores genuine negotiations or constraints on the use of force, disregards the underlying causes of conflict and instead relies on state coercion to impose a new status quo.
So while the public has understandably been focused on the unprecedented destruction in Gaza, the deadly assaults by Israeli settlers on West Bank Palestinians are part of the larger picture. They should be understood as yet another manifestation of the dynamics driving recent trends in Israeli politics: a policy of nonengagement with Palestinian national claims.
Dana El Kurd is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond
TREEMAN says
Your interesting article appears to support that Israel is demanding “living space”( like Hitler demanded “living space”)!! England and France SCREWED UP the Middle East after WWI by NOT asking the Arabs how they wanted the new nation’s borders!!
Skibum says
I doubt the Middle East problems will ever be resolved, certainly not in my lifetime. It would be wonderful if both the Palestinians and Israelis recognized each other’s right to peacefully exist and occupy their own lands, but I think there is too much distrust on both sides and there is a lot of blame that could be spread around but that will not end the ongoing conflict. The Israeli government needs to loudly proclaim the right of Palestinians to live in peace without having to worry about the daily threats and violence from Israel’s own citizens, and the government needs to stop expanding all of the settlements where they are systematically squeezing out Palestinians from the little bit of land left to them. For their part, Palestinians should quit allowing terrorist groups like Hamas from reigning over them, and come to the understanding that those terrorists don’t have the Palestinians’ best interest at heart – they want the total and complete destruction of the State of Israel and all Israeli people. Will cooler heads prevail in the near, or distant future? It would be wonderful, but I’m not holding my breath for any resolution, or a so-called two state solution as long as Palestinians are ruled by terrorists and Israel is governed by far right, corrupt idiots like Netanyahu.
Sherry says
@Skibum and Bill C. . . you are both so right on!
This is essentially what has been told to me by extended family in Israel. They saw this coming when Netanyahu got back into office. His extreme right-wing agenda for years has been to deny a homeland for the (second class) palestinian people, and to “annex” their lands for the expansion of Israel.
My family who lives there says 40% or more of Israel’s citizens are against this agenda, and in support of a two state solution. They feel forced to live under the Netanyahu dictatorship and have warned me that trump is hell bent to do the same thing here. . . creating an all “white Christian” USA!
VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY. . . OR, IT WILL BE GONE!!!
Ray W. says
Thank you, Skibum, for your insights.
Ninety-two years ago, when addressing Parlaiment, Churchill spoke at length about the decline of British authority in India and the ensuing chaos and insecurity:
“As the British authority passes for a time into collapse, the old hatreds between the Moslems and the Hindus revive and acquire new life and malignancy. We cannot easily conceive what these hatreds are. There are in India mobs of neighbours, people who have dwelt together in the closest propinquity all their lives, who when held and dominated by these passions will tear each other to pieces, men, women, and children, with their fingers. Not for a hundred years have the relations between Moslems and Hindus been so poisoned as they have since England was deemed to be losing her grip, and was believed to be ready to quit the scene if told to go.”
If Churchill was right, that the Hindus and Muslims who resided amongst each other across a subcontinent that now consists of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh could live peacefully together only under rule of the British, is it possible to argue that Palestine was somewhat calm until the British forewent their Mandate and Israel took the opportunity to announce the statehood of Israel. Since that time, a total of 75 years, the passions of the two major indigenous populations have dominated the region, and they been tearing themselves apart the whole time, sometimes with their fingers, except when, exhausted, they pull back to pause, if only to regain their capacity to maul each other once again, ad infinitum.
Is it possible that TREEMAN, above, has it completely backwards? That he engages in exaggerations based on his, and everyone else’s, inability to understand the passions that rule the region? That the indigenous peoples of Palestine have always wanted to tear the region to pieces, and it was the rule of the British between the two world wars that kept the violence to a minimum, though I concede that “minimum” is a gross understatement of the 20 years of carnage and random murder during the Mandate. I have commented on Churchill’s acknowledgement that 20,000 British troops, some of them the best in the Army, were in Palestine in 1940 to keep the peace. With a total population of some 2 million in the region, that meant the British needed to station one soldier for every 100 people in the region, just to keep them from tearing each other to pieces. Flagler County, as a comparison, with its greater than 100k population, would need over 1000 heavily armed soldiers (not police officers), some of them being from America’s best-trained units, just to keep the extremists in the Mondex from killing native Bunnellians, and vice-versa.
The extremist ultraorthodox Jews and the extremist Palestinians have always existed; they continuously raided and killed, destroyed and pillaged, decade after decade, whenever given the chance. Hamas slaughters 1400 Israelis and the Israeli ultraorthodox settlers answer with sniper fire, murdering West Bank Palestinians as they work their olive groves. The Israeli government has arrested hundreds of settlers, but justice seldom results.
The British did not rule well, but they could not possibly have screwed up something that was already completely screwed up. I have read enough over the decades to know that for centuries of Ottoman rule, and Persian rule before that, Jewish communities thrived when off the beaten path, hidden in remote regions where they could defend themselves from outsiders, just as the Alawite strongholds have always been in the mountains of Lebanon, not in Beirut. It was only when an outside force kept the Palestinians in check that Jewish communities could thrive in port cities or along major trade routes. When the decrepit Ottoman Empire collapsed, the British had to come in to maintain some level of safety for the indigenous Jewish population.
For 100 years, nothing has worked. Not the best efforts of the millions of minds in the region. Not the best efforts of the millions of outsiders who have engaged in humanitarian aid of countless different forms. Not the best efforts of statesmen across the world. President Carter seems to have come the closest to accomplishing a minimal level of peace, with the Camp David Accords, at the cost, via assassination by extremists, of the two leaders of the greatest regional powers, and many billions of dollars of American aid. Yes, Jordan and Egypt took their armies off the table, but that only seems to have encouraged the Palestinians and the Jews to even greater slaughter in the decades since 1978.
And no one from outside the region can adequately conceive of the ancient hatreds and animosities that drive the indigenous to madness and slaughter.
Bill C says
“Hamas slaughters 1400 Israelis and the Israeli ultraorthodox settlers answer with sniper fire, murdering West Bank Palestinians as they work their olive groves. The Israeli government has arrested hundreds of settlers, but justice seldom results.”
What about the 2 aircraft carriers, Iron Dome, billions in US Foreign Aid financing the world’s most sophisticated drones, intelligence gathering and communications equipment, rocket launchers, tanks, ammunition— and 12,000+ dead Palestinians? The screed here presented by Ray W suggests there is some sort of military parity and proportionality between Israel and Palestine, a prejudiced and slanted opinion.
Ray W. says
You might be right. You might be wrong.
Parity, of course, is irrelevant to the horror in Palestine. Each indigenous group is more than willing to slaughter the other, parity be damned. What a useless comment you made. One hundred years ago, Palestinian Arabs dominated the region, and the slaughter was beyond solution. Today, Palestinian Jews dominate the region, and the slaughter is beyond solution. A hundred years from now, who knows? But the slaughter will very likely still be beyond solution.
No one has ever come up with a solution to this most intractable of ongoing violences. You, of course, offer only blame for one side and for those who ally with them, which places you as only the most recent addition to a very long list of blamers. Just accept that until the will to tear each other apart by one’s fingers is somehow assuaged, you placing blame on one thing or the other will never amount to anything other than noise. You actually present as someone who thinks he knows what he is talking about. You don’t. I don’t either. I argue that Churchill was right when he said that the level of hatred in this region is beyond the understanding of anyone who lives outside of it. Prove him wrong!
Ray W. says
Upon further thought about Churchill’s description of an outsider’s inability to completely understand the depth of hate between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, Captain Ahab came to mind.
In the end, Moby Dick rams and sinks the Pequod. Captain Ahab, adrift amidst the wreckage and about to drown, to the bitterest of ends, curses the object of his venomous rage:
“Toward thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee, from hell’s heart, I stab at thee; for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!”
Such all-consuming hate and Bill C. thinks that parity has any meaning at all in the all-destroying yet unconquerable Palestine. Even in hell’s heart, an extremist Palestinian Arab and an ultraorthodox Israeli Jew will grapple to the last breath, will stab to the last gasp, will hate to the last moment, parity be damned.
Bill C. wastes his and everyone else’s time commenting about who is allied with whom, who has more powerful weapons, who is dominant today. None of that matters to the Captain Ahabs arrayed against each other in Palestine. The extremists just don’t care about such things.
Bill C says
Ray W Your self admiration leads you expound on irrelevance. My comment was directed at your statement-
“Hamas slaughters 1400 Israelis and the Israeli ultraorthodox settlers answer with sniper fire, murdering West Bank Palestinians as they work their olive groves. The Israeli government has arrested hundreds of settlers, but justice seldom results.”
Ray W. says
Does every FlaglerLive reader now understand how easy it is to goad the gullible commenter into revealing his lack of foundational knowledge? Bill C actually presents as someone who thinks reason, and blame based on that reason, is the answer to the never-ending violence in Palestine and then attacks the messenger who proves his ignorance.
Back to the basics, Bill C.
There are societies based on the law of debt of blood vengeance. Such societies are referred to as honor-based. There are other societies, much fewer in number, that are based on reason as it was taught to our founding fathers; they obey the rule of law, recognize individual rights, and hold freedom above all other goals. Such societies are referred to as respect-based societies. In essence, honor demands vengeance, respect commands justice.
The two most populous indigenous peoples of Palestine have never in the past century ever even attempted to build a respect-based society towards each other. Theirs is one of a debt of blood vengeance, followed by another debt of blood vengeance, followed by another debt of blood vengeance, in a cycle of violence without end. Each is training its forces in the use of ever more lethal munitions. Each is getting better and better at killing each other, though I concede that the use of “better” is probably wrong but using “worse” to describe their actions is worse than the use of better.
Bill C. attempts to use reason to condemn actions in a region where reason doesn’t matter. All his comments, if they do not equally condemn both sides, are a useless waste of words. It is not an act of parity to blame both sides equally. It is an act of reality. There can be no winning argument in an honor-based war. The only goal is annihilation of the enemy. The extremist Arabs want to drive the Jews into the sea. The extremist Jews want to force the Arabs into a diaspora of millions, in order to own entirely the Promised Land. It is not the moderates, the innocent, the children who are driving this war. It is the religious extremist, the nationalist, the racist, who is actively destroying the “enemy” as only he can see them. This is why Ryszard Kapuscinski charactered such people as a plague upon the earth. It is why our founding fathers used “pestilential” to describe the unreasoning partisan member of faction. It is why Churchill described the slaughter in the Indian subcontinent as beyond the understanding of reasoning men.
Bill C will lose every argument on this subject matter not because I say so, but because it is irrational to argue that an honor-based war can be ended by reason and unequal blame. But Bill C can only see that I oppose his irrational thought process of placing an inordinate amount of blame on only one side and on the allies of that side, and his answer is to attack the messenger instead of reassessing his display of ignorance and learning from that reassessment.
Bill C says
PS “Even in hell’s heart, an extremist Palestinian Arab and an ultraorthodox Israeli Jew will grapple to the last breath, will stab to the last gasp, will hate to the last moment, parity be damned.”
WHAT? Such Nihilism and hopelessness! Your frame of reference says it all.
Skibum says
I always enjoy reading your well thought out commentary, and your example above, for me, is like being back in college, listening to a lecture being given by a very senior professor of international studies. I just learned something new, so thank you!
Pierre Tristam says
Ray W. is FlaglerLive’s own Great Courses.
Bill C says
“Authoritarian conflict management”> Call it what it really is: ethnic cleansing. Clear out the West Bank, clear out Gaza. Blow up hospitals, deny food, water, power, bounce the rubble; drive the human herd like cattle to the south, turn what was the world’s largest prison into the world’s largest concentration camp. Then declare military occupation is necessary because of resistance, finally annex the occupied territory.
Ray W. says
Avi Shlaim, an author characterized by some as a revisionist historian of the Arab-Israeli wars, wrote “The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World”, published in 2000. Dr. Matthew Hughes reviewed the book. In part of his response to Dr. Hughes’ review, Mr. Shlaim wrote the following:
“Finally, Hughes suggests that Arab military power in the 1973 war, their ‘iron wall’ if you like, prompted the two sides to negotiate the first peace treaty in 1979 between Israel and Egypt. His conclusion is that perhaps the policy of military toughness was not entirely mistaken. My argument is not that the policy of military toughness was entirely mistaken but that it could not solve the conflict with the Arabs on its own. In the Prologue to the book I explain that Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the original proponent of the strategy of the iron wall, envisaged two stages: first, building the iron wall and, second, once the Arab had given up hope of destroying Israel, negotiating with them. The mistake of some of Israel’s leaders, and especially the leaders of the Right, is that they regard Israel’s military superiority not as an asset in negotiating a final settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians but as an instrument of perpetuating Israel’s mastery over them. The politicians of the Right still believe that the only language the Arabs understand is force. But if the 50 years’ history covered in my book shows anything, it is that Israel can only have peace with the Arabs when it is prepared to meet them half-way.”
KEENAN says
Again to address what I said a couple of weeks ago… This is not a war!!!! The completely dishonest way these tragedies have been handled is what will destroy the middle east socially,economically, and emotionally. As if it’s not bad enough! Just like Hamas and Palestinians are completely different entities, so are Jews and Israelis. As I said before, you get the U.S. special forces involved and kill every Hamas member you can. You do this in concert with Israeli special forces, and even international units.
Netanyahu and his psychopaths bomb the shit out of every living civilian in Gaza in pursuit of Hamas leaders, members and perceived strongholds that in many cases are not even there. Look. No matter what there is gonna be collateral damage, what NETANYAHU IS DOING IS MURDER. He calls it a war as if they were fighting an army and not a “tactic”. A tactic called terrorism.
Netanyahu calls it war to greenlight the bombing campaign. Short sighted, convenient, and reckless. 20,000 dead,9,000 children, 1.7 million displaced. There’s 2.2 million in Gaza total!!
I think one of the most disheartening things I have seen is the way the media in the U.S. has covered all of this. October 7th was a horrible day in Israel. It was disgusting and widely condemned. Israel had the “high moral ground”, then Israeli president Herzog told media outlets, “we will not disseminate”between Palestinians and Hamas. He said that on the 8th. Benjamin Netanyahu is a far right extremist that now saw an opportunity and ran with it! The media calls it self defense, and if you speak in defense of Palestinian civilians you are called an antisemite and/or Hamas sympathizer!
The media,the Biden administration,and Netanyahu have treated Palestinians as an after thought. Zionism, the belief that “JEWS ARE THE CHOSEN PEOPLE” does not resonate well when you are murdering civilians with impunity. I have a hard time with religious doctrine telling one group of people that they are better than another. To see this transpire in a modern world with the backing of the U.S. is shocking.
By “dehumanizing” Palestinians we create more terrorist cells, just like we did in Iraq when we lied about WMDs and got 4,000 brave Americans killed for nothing.
19 Saudis planned 911 attacks! Then we go to Iraq…. Nice. Will we ever learn?
Why are we so blind? Biden doesn’t have the balls to sanction Israel. Not even a cease fire? Humanitarian pause! Then your going to give Israel 14 billion more dollars! To what! Turn Gaza to dust!!!!