While everyone is paying attention to the war on Gaza, Israeli settlers are quietly driving Palestinians from their West Bank homes and villages. From The Cradle’s Lebanon Correspondent at thecradle.co:
Photo Credit: The Cradle
Alongside the military assault on Gaza, extremist religious parties in Israel’s government coalition seized a strategic opportunity after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to launch a systematic displacement agenda in the occupied West Bank.
This stealthy policy was facilitated by several factors, notably, the escalation of settler violence post-7 October, increased political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the vise-like leverage that settler-extremists enjoy over Israel’s ruling coalition and key governmental institutions, particularly the Ministry of Finance
As an example, nearly $250 million of the national budget earmarked for war expenses in December 2023 was directed by Israel’s radical Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich toward settlement projects in the West Bank.
Immediately after its announcement, the EU criticized the settlement-funding provisions of the revised budget, rightly arguing that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the forced displacement of Palestinians undermine security in the occupied West Bank, and will not make Israel safer.
The silent war on the West Bank
In response, Tel Aviv significantly tightened its grip on West Bank Palestinians. This involved obstructing Palestinian workers from employment in Israel and the finance minister’s refusal to transfer Palestinian clearance funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay Gaza’s worker salaries.
