ISRAEL: The real target is the West Bank

What follows is my English translation of an article, originally in Italian, by Massimo Mazzucco, published on his website LuogoComune.net yesterday, 1st September 2024. (All formatting original).

Brief history of the West Bank

After the First World War, thanks to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain and France took control of the large area in the Near East called Greater Syria. Present-day Syria and Lebanon went to France, whereas Britain took Palestine, part of Mesopotamia (today Iraq), and present-day Jordan (which did not yet exist under that name).

When Churchill became British Colonial Minister in 1921, he decided to entrust the management of the land east of the Jordan to the Ashemite Emir Abdullah. This land, which remained under British control until 1946, was called Transjordan, which literally means “beyond the Jordan”.

The land “on the other side of the Jordan” (today's West Bank) remained part of the Palestinian territory under direct British mandate.

In 1946, Transjordan became independent, giving rise to the present state of Jordan.

In 1948, the British handed the mandate over Palestine to the United Nations, while Israel in turn declared the birth of an independent state. The neighbouring states (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq) immediately declared war on Israel, but were defeated. The only ones who managed to gain anything (according to the official narrative) were the Jordanians, who during the armed clashes “conquered” the West Bank, which also included East Jerusalem.

In reality, there is a strong suspicion that the West Bank was granted by Israel to the Jordanians, precisely in exchange for “soft” opposition on their part during the war. Suffice it to say that the Jordanian armed forces were commanded, curiously enough, by an Englishman, John Bagot Glubb (known as Glubb Pasha). According to the Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, “Suspicions that King Abdullah was in contact with Jewish leaders [during the ’48 war ed.] greatly damaged his image in the Arab world. Many critics claim that he was willing to give up the Arab claim on the whole of Palestine in exchange for a slice of Palestine all to himself”.

In fact, Abdullah got it, and after 1949 the West Bank became Jordanian territory to all intents and purposes. Most of the Palestinian refugees, who had to flee their land during the ethnic cleansing (Nakba) carried out by the Zionists in 1948, flowed into that territory. Other Palestinians, driven from their lands, found asylum in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan itself.

From 1949 onwards, there was a debate in Israel - still unresolved - whether it would not have been better to annex the West Bank directly as well, during the 1948 war. This thesis was sustained by the most ardent nationalists, who saw in the annexation of the West Bank the completion of the Zionist project for the realisation of Eretz Israel, that is, the creation of the “Great Israel” of biblical times (it is not by chance that today's Zionists insist on calling the West Bank “Judea and Samaria”, precisely in homage to the denomination that these lands had in biblical times).

In any case, from 1949 the West Bank remained under the control of Jordan, and this lasted until 1967, when Israel occupied it militarily, during the Six Day War.

Since then, the West Bank has officially been considered “occupied territory”. In November ‘67, the United Nations issued the famous Resolution 242, which required Israel to withdraw from the occupied areas and return to the armistice borders of ’49. But Israel ignored this resolution, and instead began to encourage the gradual settlement of Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

The settlement of settlers in the occupied territories is also a blatant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states in Article 49: “The occupying Power shall not proceed to transfer any part of its civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

Instead, history turned out differently. In defiance of all resolutions and international agreements Israel, with the constant protection of the United States, proceeded to colonise the West Bank with impunity, while breaking it up into a thousand separate islands.

Today, the West Bank is a kind of Swiss cheese, whose territory has been divided into three zones: A, B and C.

Zone C (light pink), which covers about 60% of the territory, is administered and militarily controlled by Israel. Approximately 300,000 Palestinians live in Zone C. They are subject to all kinds of harassment by the IDF (from difficulties in getting around to the lack of primary schools, from the difficulty of accessing medical care to the impossibility of obtaining building permits). Palestinians are also restricted in their use of water, which they can only obtain, at an increased price, by using special pre-paid cards. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers build themselves villas with swimming pools, and freely water their vegetable gardens with running water.

Zone B (dark pink, about 22% of the territory) is administered by the Palestinian authority, which must, however, “share” military control with Israel (translation: Israel manages and controls all the checkpoints - see map [above, on the right] - and thus effectively controls the movement of Palestinians on their land).

Zone A (green) constitutes the remaining 18% of the territory, and is theoretically under the direct control of the Palestinians, although in reality the IDF troops come and go as they please, doing as they please. They open and close roads at will, and under the guise of “security” they put up gates and blockades everywhere, and arbitrarily arrest Palestinians for whatever reason. Moreover, Zone A is not a continuous territory, but is the sum of a dozen or so “islands” separated from each other by walls, barricades and roads only passable by Israelis, which makes it even more difficult for Palestinians to move from one area to another within their own territory.

Israel's intention to make life impossible for the Palestinians, to force them to leave sooner or later, is obvious even to the blind, deaf and even a little senile.

But all this does not bother the American administration, which has been allowing this continuous violation of international law for decades now, and indeed facilitates it in every possible way. And now that all attention is on Gaza, the West Bank settlers are taking advantage of this to carry out continuous raids and acts of violence against Palestinians, with the tacit agreement of the Israeli police.

And should Trump become president, he has already promised Myriam Adelson (the Zionist billionaire, Trump's main campaign donor) that he will help Israel in every possible way to definitively annex the West Bank into its national territory.

At that point, the Zionist dream would be complete, with the (now de facto) subjugation of the Gaza Strip and the so-called “Judea and Samaria” (present-day West Bank) finally becoming part of the glorious biblical territory of Eretz Israel again.

While the world pretends not to see.

---

---

To confirm what Massimo Mazzucco wrote in his article, here is a video of an Israeli bulldozer in Jenin (West Bank) destroying Palestinian shops: years of sacrifice, history and memories ending in rubble because the Zionists decided so. By the way, what Israel is carrying out is not just a genocide, it is also “cultural genocide”, for which I refer you to this excellent article.

Now a few updates from the Middle East.

You have probably heard/read about the demonstrations and national strikes that occurred in Israel between yesterday evening and today (Monday 2nd September), following the recovery of the bodies of six Israeli hostages by the Israel Defense Forces yesterday morning: it was such a big thing that Western mainstream media (MSM) could not ignore it. Nevertheless I will quickly provide a short summary.

Last night hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Israel to protest against Netanyahu boycotting the ceasefire and demanding his resignation, as reported by Al Jazeera and even The Guardian. Here is a photo of the demonstration in Tel Aviv last night:

From Al Jazeera.

Of course, they were not protesting on behalf of the Palestinians, as they were calling for a ceasefire for the Israeli hostages; nevertheless, paradoxically, these Israelis were doing more for a ceasefire than the Outlaw US Empire and its NATO and EU vassals.

Then Israeli trade union federation, Histadrut, announced a large-scale strike, for today, as reported in the aforementioned Al Jazeera article: the decision came in response to demands from the families of Israeli prisoners, with the aim of putting pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu's government to negotiate a prisoner exchange.
As reported by The Guardian, Histadrut chair Arnon Bar-David said in a statement:

I have come to the conclusion that only our intervention can shake those who need to be shaken. A deal is not progressing due to political considerations and this is unacceptable.

So, the first nationwide general strike since the Hamas attacks of 7th October 2023 started this morning at 6:00 EEST, with protesters taking to the streets again - even workers at hospitals, Ben Gurion Airport (Israel’s main air transport hub) and Haifa main commercial seaport went on strike, as reported by The Guardian here and here. Originally the strike was planned to last until 18:00 EEST, however, after Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, called on the labour court to move to ban the strike, the court ordered the end of the general strike by 14:30 EEST, as reported by The Guardian in its live blog here and in this article. So, in the end, this nationwide general strike did not accomplish much. As one of the interviewees of The Guardian said here…

Only a longer strike will make the people in government understand that the economy of Israel is going to go down.

…while another said:

If there’s a hostage deal, the government will fall, so they are not interested in a deal.
What Ben-Gvir wants and what Smotrich wants, they get, because Bibi doesn’t want to go to jail. He doesn’t want to lose power, because Bibi will be voted out in the first election if the government falls.

Meanwhile, the UK has decided to suspend 30 arms export licences to Israel… out of 350 (source: The Guardian). Less than 10%! Of course, this is just PR (Public Relations). In fact, the new Labour government was slammed by humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with Tim Bierley, a campaigner at Global Justice Now, stating (from The Guardian - emphasis mine):

Under huge pressure the government is waking up to the fact that it must stop arming Israel. But this is a half-baked ban which risks maintaining UK complicity in war crimes. You wouldn’t deal with a dangerous arsonist by simply reducing their petrol supply.

This announcement doesn’t go nearly far enough. Britain is still providing military goods to a government accused of genocide. That position is morally reprehensible, and has very little support from the British public. We must push on for a full and complete arms embargo.

On the other hand, Israel Katz, the Israeli Foreign Minister, said that his country was “disappointed by a series of decisions” made by the UK government, as reported by The Guardian. Also Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defence Minister, tweeted a similar statement:

From X (formerly Twitter).

On a final side note, according to Bloomberg, Turkish President Erdogan has officially submitted Turkey's application to become a member of the BRICS+ group.

This decision is part of a strategy to seek new alliances outside the West, as Western policies are doing nothing but isolating Washington and its vassals.

In fact, Erdogan reiterated the importance of a more equitable and inclusive world order and stressed the need for greater cooperation with emerging countries to ensure global stability and economic growth.

Joining the BRICS would bring significant economic benefits for Turkey because it will allow new investments, access to emerging markets and a more influential role in the geopolitical arena.

As Al Mayadeen reported in this article…

Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party has frequently accused Western nations of obstructing Turkey's aspirations for a self-sufficient defense industry and a robust economy. Erdogan has consistently called for reforms to the UN Security Council to include more nations beyond the current five permanent members and has shown interest in joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), established by Russia and China as a counterbalance to NATO.

"We do not have to choose between the EU and the SCO as some people claim," Erdogan said. "On the contrary, we have to develop our relations with both these and other organizations on a win-win basis."

---

---

UPDATE (02/09/2024): Earlier this evening Abu Obeida, spokesman of the Al-Qassam brigade (the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas), released the following statements, as reported by Al Mayadeen:

Netanyahu's insistence on releasing the prisoners through military pressure instead of concluding a deal will mean their return to their families in coffins.

After the Nuseirat incident, new instructions were issued to the fighters tasked with guarding the prisoners regarding dealing with them when the occupation army approaches their place of detention.

Abu Obeida’s statements seem to imply that hostages are now killed if the IDF tries to rescue them, as it happened to the last six.

The “Nuiserat incident” Abu Obeida refers to is the liberation of 4 Israeli hostages on 8th June 2024 at a cost of at least 274 Palestinian lives (as per AP News)!