[ Palestinians in West Bank cities are fast discovering that if
their expulsion won’t be possible, Gazafication will be their
future.]
[[link removed]]

IN JENIN, ISRAEL IS UNVEILING THE NEXT PHASE OF APARTHEID  
[[link removed]]


 

Amjad Iraqi
June 30, 2023
+972 Magazine [[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Palestinians in West Bank cities are fast discovering that if their
expulsion won’t be possible, Gazafication will be their future. _

Palestinians gather around parts of an Israeli armored vehicle after
it was destroyed during clashes between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian fighters in the West Bank city of Jenin, June 19, 2023.,
Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90 // +972 Magazine

 

The horrifying sight of settler pogroms last week, in which hundreds
of Israelis rampaged through Palestinian villages in the occupied West
Bank after a deadly shooting in the settlement of Eli, has pushed
Israel’s security authorities into a very uncomfortable corner.
Embarrassed by the viral images
[[link removed]] of
burning homes, charred vehicles, and destroyed businesses, the army,
police, and Shin Bet jointly denounced
[[link removed]] the
attacks as “nationalist terrorism” that “contradict every moral
and Jewish value.” The IDF has been particularly eager to present
itself as a responsible body that will restore law and order,
promising to take every measure against those “who act in a violent
and extreme manner inside the Palestinian towns.”

Putting aside the glaring fact
[[link removed]] that
the army is one of the principal institutions providing settlers with
the resources, protection, and confidence to carry out such wanton
violence, there is another reason why this public relations maneuver
should be called out for the farce that it is.

On June 19, just days before the pogroms, an Israeli Apache
helicopter fired missiles
[[link removed]] into
the West Bank city of Jenin during a fierce battle between raiding
army units and Palestinian fighters, purportedly to “provide
cover” for evacuating wounded soldiers; five Palestinians including
a 15-year-old boy were killed, and 90 were injured. Two days later, an
Israeli drone fired at
[[link removed]] a
Palestinian militant cell near Jenin, said to target gunmen
responsible for several attacks including at a checkpoint. Both
operations were quickly overshadowed in the ensuing days by the Eli
shooting and the settler violence that followed.

Far from being one-off incidents, the aerial assaults reveal a
dangerous phase in the evolution of Israel’s occupation. The air
strikes are reportedly the first in the West Bank in two decades,
awakening the nightmares of many Palestinians who ran for cover or
suffered wounds from helicopter attacks during the Second Intifada. In
that time, though, aerial warfare
[[link removed]] became the modus
operandi
[[link removed]] in
the Gaza Strip, accelerated by Israel’s withdrawal of its
settlements in 2005 and the total blockade of the territory following
Hamas’ takeover.

 

Palestinians in Gaza protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Jenin
following Israeli military raids into the West Bank city, at the
Israel-Gaza border fence, east of Gaza City, June 19, 2023.  (photo:
Atia Mohammed/Flash90  //  +972 Magazine)
This reconfiguration of military rule has intentionally produced a
physical and psychological separation between the West Bank and Gaza,
abetted by the fratricidal rivalry between Fatah and Hamas. As that
distance normalized, the two territories became regarded as
disconnected and incomparable. Even well-meaning advocates — in
their heavy focus on settlements and annexation — often fell into
the trap of forgetting Gaza outside the scope of wartime, deeming it
an anomaly in the context of the “one-state reality.” But as many
activists, scholars, and experts have
[[link removed]] warned
[[link removed]],
the structures used to confine and suppress Gaza are not a deviation
from Israel’s methodology, but a natural continuation
[[link removed]] of
it. And that was made clear over the skies of Jenin last week.

Like Gaza, Jenin has long been a center of Palestinian social life and
political resistance — and as such, a target of vicious repression.
For over a year, the Israeli army has carried out a deadly
and protracted operation
[[link removed]] in
the city, repeatedly closing off the region while ground troops break
into civilian homes and destroy public infrastructure on a near-weekly
basis. The Palestinian armed groups
[[link removed]],
led by young men who have only known a life of despair and death
[[link removed]],
have put up a relentless fight, and have recently shown that they can
make it even more difficult for Israeli troops to invade — a fact
that forced the army to desperately turn to air power last week. The
bombardment of a populated urban area, together with the city’s
collective punishment, is further justified by the demonization of
Jenin as a “cesspool of terrorism” requiring constant intervention
— in essence, the same doctrine of “mowing the lawn”
[[link removed]] that
is applied in the blockaded strip a few kilometers away.

As such, Gaza is hardly an exception to the rule of Israeli apartheid.
Rather, it is the ultimate bantustan
[[link removed]] —
the model for controlling and weakening a native population in a
besieged space, using modern weapons and technology, with local rulers
to handle their basic needs, at minimal cost to the settler society
surrounding them. West Bank centers like Jenin and Nablus, already
subjected to various forms of closure and invasion, are now catching a
glimpse of what is yet to come. For many people there, the main
experience of Israelis may no longer be of raiding troops or marauding
settlers, but of soaring jets and humming drones. If the expulsion of
Palestinians won’t be possible, Gazafication will be their future.

That is why it is a morbid joke to hear IDF Chief of Staff Herzl
Halevi, days after the settler pogroms, preaching
[[link removed]] at
an army commencement ceremony: “An officer who sees an Israeli
citizen, intending to throw a Molotov cocktail at a Palestinian house
and stands idly by, cannot be an officer.” The army may feign
distress over settlers committing “nationalist terrorism,” but it
openly commands its soldiers to do the same, so long as it is done in
uniform. Either way, despite Halevi’s claim, it is clear that an
Israeli who oversees brutal violence in Gaza can easily find a path to
becoming a general-turned-politician
[[link removed]]. An
Israeli inciting the same violence in the West Bank, meanwhile, can
now aspire to become minister of national security
[[link removed]].

_[AMJAD IRAQI is a senior editor at +972 Magazine. He is also a policy
member of the think tank Al-Shabaka, and was previously an advocacy
coordinator at the legal center Adalah. In addition to +972, his
writings have appeared in the London Review of Books, The Nation, The
Guardian, and Le Monde Diplomatique, among others. He is a
Palestinian citizen of Israel, based in Haifa.]_

_This article originally appeared in “The Landline,” +972’s
weekly newsletter. Subscribe here
[[link removed]]._

_Our work has never been more crucial. And as dark as it seems, there
are still glimmers of hope. The popularity of outright fascism has
woken people up, both in Israel-Palestine and across the world, to the
dangerous repercussions of what may soon come. Palestinians and
Israelis who believe in a just future are already organizing and
strategizing to put up the fight of their lives._

_CAN WE COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT
[[link removed]]? +972 MAGAZINE IS THE
LEADING MEDIA VOICE OF THIS MOVEMENT, A PLACE WHERE PALESTINIAN AND
ISRAELI JOURNALISTS AND ACTIVISTS CAN TELL THEIR STORIES WITHOUT
CENSORSHIP. OUR JOURNALISM DISRUPTS THE SKEWED MAINSTREAM COVERAGE AND
AIMS TO PROMOTE JUSTICE AND EQUALITY FOR EVERYONE BETWEEN THE RIVER
AND THE SEA._

* Jenin
[[link removed]]
* Nablus
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Palestinians
[[link removed]]
* Occupied Territories
[[link removed]]
* Settler violence
[[link removed]]
* Benjamin Netanyahu
[[link removed]]
* zionism
[[link removed]]
* IDF
[[link removed]]
* Bantustans
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]