Every time I return to Israel’s Occupied Territory, I am taken aback by the irreversible transformations foisted onto the resident Palestinians by Israel’s illegal settlements project.
Every year, more and more hilltops sprout cookie-cutter apartment blocks, all covered by the same red-brick tiles, stretching end-to-end from one
settlement rooftop to the next. Older settlements have grown. Newer settlements appear as if by magic. All of them shamelessly blushing brick-red under heaven’s gaze.
What little forest and greenery once existed in this barren land has been uprooted, plowed under and paved over to make way for more Jewish settlers, a good many of whom come from the United States, happy to take advantage of the many financial enticements Israel offers to this new generation of “pioneers.”
Several weeks ago, the Israeli daily paper Haaretz published an interesting exposé about this settler movement, and its sad ties to American evangelicalism. It is entitled: “Inside the Evangelical Money Flowing Into the West Bank.”
The article details the vast sums of money being donated by U.S. Christian Zionists to Israel’s illegal settler movement.
According to Haaretz, “the total amount of funding raised in the past 10 years [is] somewhere between $50 million and $65 million.”
Yep, $50 to $65 million US dollars channeled from Christian coffers into the
last western, settler-colonial project occurring in direct violation of international law.
Believe it or not, it is another of the many bizarre ways in which Israel continues to mimic the behavior of Nazi Germany and every other settler-colonial project in history. I kid you not.
Check out the Fourth Geneva Convention, if you’ve never read it. Especially Section III, article 49 dealing with Occupied Territories. The most relevant portions declare:
“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Written during a time of rising anti-colonial sentiment, this portion of the Geneva Convention was also drafted in the shadow of Hitler’s massive population transfers throughout Eastern Europe prior to the outbreak of World War II. After his conquest of Poland in 1939, Hitler announced:
“a new order of ethnographical conditions, that is to say, a resettlement of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in the obtaining of better dividing lines.”
Populations would be moved about in order to benefit the expansion of
ethnic Germans.
Hitler’s explicit goal was to protect all Germans in Europe who were “threatened with de-Germanization.”
THAT is the primary motive behind the inclusion of Section III, article 49 in the Fourth Geneva Convention.
How tragically ironic that the offspring of Holocaust survivors who found refuge in Israel now implement a similar ethnographic plan intended to “Judaize” Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank) by means of massive population transfers, i.e. native Palestinians are being pushed out so that foreign, Jewish settlers can move in.
This is why Israel’s settler project in the Occupied Territory is illegal, folks. It’s illegal because it would make Hitler proud. It violates the Geneva Conventions, which was spearheaded by the United States.
Only weeks ago, I was driving past many of these settlements as my
Palestinian friend pointed out the numerous, new expansions now under construction. In several cases, he also told me the stories of how the Israeli authorities had, once again, used their laughable “laws” of land ownership to “legally” confiscate, i.e. steal, more of this Palestinian real estate.
As I read this article (and another on the same subject) I am struck by the near complete absence of any reference to the native inhabitants of this land – the Palestinian people. When passing reference is made to the “other” folks who were living here long before the state of Israel, they are noted in passing as the restless hostiles who really ought to give up their struggle, if they know what’s good for them.
One American Zionist, working as a volunteer picking illegal grapes in an illegal vineyard rooted in stolen land, calmly passes judgement, “It’s impossible to remove the settlers from here, as long as they believe in the Bible. The solution to the conflict will be for the media to stop encouraging the Arabs’ uprising and encourage them to live together with the Jews.”
So, I guess it’s all the media’s fault. Too many reporters agitating the hapless Palestinians who, apparently, aren’t able to think for themselves.
But it’s hard for anyone “to live together” with the marauders who invaded your property, taken control of your home, pushed you out, made you homeless, and then warns you repeatedly not to put down new roots whenever you try to make a new start.
Another American volunteer confirms the Zionist prejudice that all Palestinians are violent agitators:
“Last February a number of [volunteers in an illegal settlement] found themselves in the midst of a clash between settlers and Palestinians near Har Bracha. According to them, Palestinians from the nearby village of Iraq Burin attacked them with stones while they were in the vineyard.
“The Har Bracha security coordinator came and fired on the Palestinians, who say they were defending their lands, wounding a shepherd.”
But, of course, the American visitor never bothered to learn the first thing about the history of this conflict. He certainly does not know why he is helping these settlers to break international law. He knows nothing about the resident Palestinians who have long depended on this very piece of land for their own livelihoods. He has never ventured beyond the walls and electrified fence surrounding his settlement. He certainly has never asked a Palestinian about the difficulties of living under military occupation while watching strangers pick fruit from your soil.
As with most western accounts, there is no back-story; the narrative begins ex nihilo with a “Palestinian attack” that comes out of nowhere, seemingly for no reason. It’s just another story about those pesky Injuns doin’ what Injuns do best. Makin’ trouble, hinderin’ the advance of western civilization.
Christian Zionists are remarkably incurious people, by and large. Rarely do they ask if the Palestinians might have a good reason to be angry. If they did, they would hear stories about the many previous assaults launched against them by Israeli soldiers and the very settlers they are now helping to protect.
They might also stop to think about why they are helping Israel do for Jews in the Middle East what Hitler hoped to do for ethnic Germans in eastern Europe.
I encourage you to take a few moments to check out these articles for yourself.
