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Netanyahu sees ‘victory’ as crushing hopes for Palestinian statehood
For months, Israeli PM Netanyahu has promised to press ahead with Israel’s military campaign in Gaza until achieving “total victory”. But what does “total victory” look like?
According to Israeli author and analyst Akiva Eldar, Netanyahu sees victory as “an end to the two-state solution”. “This is the conflict that is waiting around the corner”, Eldar told Al Jazeera, pointing to divergence between Israel and its backer the US on the issue of Palestinian statehood.
“What Netanyahu wants is to make sure that there will never be a Palestinian state,” he said.
Endgame: What’s Israel’s plan in the occupied West Bank?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/16/end-game-what-is-israels-plan-in-the-occupied-west-bank
In the occupied West Bank, the war on Gaza has provided cover for continued Israeli violence and expansion.
On Wednesday, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced new plans to expand settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, ignoring international law and the International Court of Justice’s recent ruling that Israel’s continued presence there is unlawful.
“No anti-Israel or anti-Zionist decision will stop the development of the settlement,” Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionist Party and is himself a settler, said.
Analysts told Al Jazeera that these actions are part of Israel’s larger plan to annex and ethnically cleanse a region it has been militarily occupying since 1967.
Hamas calls on West Bank to ‘rise up in anger’ after deadly settler rampage
Hamas has offered condolences to a Palestinian killed during a nighttime Israeli settler attack in the occupied West Bank, saying the assault is part of Israel’s “fascist extermination plans”.
“We call on our people in all governorates of the West Bank to rise up in anger to deter the settlers and repel their terrorist attacks,” said Hamas in a statement.
Israel’s “policy of incursions, assassinations and unleashing settler gangs will only increase our people’s adherence to their land and holy sites”, it added.
Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich’s remarks on settler attack ‘performative'
We’ve heard from Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in a settlement not far from where [the Israeli settler attack] took place last night [near Qalqilya].
He said: “The actions of the settlers are not connected in any way to the settlement enterprise or to settlers there.” He described what happened as acts by “criminals who should be dealt with by the law enforcement authorities”.
This might seem on the surface to be a bit of sympathy from a far-right settler minister in the Israeli government, but you have to go on and read what else he said.
He said: “We build and develop the settlements in a legal and stately manner.” He added that “criminal anarchist violence has absolutely nothing to do with the work of settlements”.
This clearly illustrates that Smotrich is more interested in Israelis on his turf in a sense. His comments are not a show of sympathy for the loss of Palestinian life or property.
We also have to remember what Smotrich said last year when a similar attack took place on the Palestinian town of Huwara. Smotrich said that Huwara “needs to be wiped out” and that “the state of Israel should do it”.
So these comments that seem to strike a little bit of balance on the surface simply aren’t that. If anything, they are performative.
