Nima Elbagir on the Israeli justice system in the West Bank

Israel has been operating two distinct justice systems in the West Bank since it captured the area in 1967.  Palestinians living there fall under the jurisdiction of Israel’s military court system, where judges and prosecutors are uniformed Israeli soldiers.  Meanwhile, Jewish settlers there are subject to civilian courts.

A legal adviser at the Israel Defense Forces’ International Law Department told CNN on Wednesday that the different systems were in place because under international law, Israel is not allowed to “export” its own legal system to the West Bank.

B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, a non-governmental organization, says the courts “serve as one of the central systems maintaining Israel’s control over the Palestinian people.”

~ Nima Elbagir, "Release of Palestinian prisoners sheds light on controversial Israeli justice system in the occupied West Bank," CNN, December 8, 2023

Released Palestinian prisoners near Ramallah

Gideon Levy on the dehumanization of Palestinians by Israelis

By the end of the day, how many Israelis did ever try, for a moment, to put themselves in the place of the Palestinians, for a moment, for one day?  And I want to give you two examples which will demonstrate it.

Many years ago, I interviewed then candidate for Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.  And I asked him a question which I try to ask in any occasion: "Mr. Barak, what would have happened if you would have been born Palestinian?"  And Barak gave me the only honest answer he could give me.  He said "I would have joined the terror organization."  What else would he have done?  Would he become a poet?  He doesn't know to write poems.  Would he become a pianist?  He's quite a bad pianist and I doubt he would have become a collaborator because he is a fighter.  And it became a scandal because how can you dare to put Ehud Barak to think what would have happened if he would have become a Palestinian.

And the second incident briefly: second intifada, the city of Jenin, the most closed city in the West Bank, real, total seige.  I go out from Jenin, I come to the checkpoint, Palestinian ambulances parking there with the red lights.  I stand after him.  No cars can get out of Jenin in those days, no cars can get out, and I wait.  The soldiers are playing backgammon in the tent.  Usually, I know, I know myself, it's better that I don't get into confrontation with the soldiers because it always ends up very badly.  So I stayed in the car.

But after 40 minutes, I couldn't take it.  And I went out from the car, I went first to the Palestinian ambulance driver and I asked him, "What's going on?"  He told me, "That's the routine.  They let me wait one hour until they come and check the ambulance."  And I couldn't take it anymore and I went to the soldiers.  It became a confrontation.  But the question that I asked them which really brought them to direct their weapons toward me was one: "What would have happened if your father would have been lying in this ambulance?"  This freaked them out.  They lost control.  How can I dare to compare between their father and the Palestinian in the ambulance?  And this set of beliefs, that they are not human beings like us, enable us - Israelis - to live in so much peace with those crimes, ongoing crimes, for so many years, with losing any kind of humanity, values.

I heard today, people talk about Jewish values.  I must be frank with you, I don't know what are Jewish values.  I know what are universal values.

~ Gideon Levy, "How Israelis Live So Easily With Occupation," Saad Tasleem, 3:35 mark, November 7, 2023

Anonymous Palestinian American woman on how the West Bank has changed

Q: Now you are a Palestinian American?

A: Palestinian American.

Q: You haven't been here in 12 years.  Now you just came here.  What surprised you most this time being here?  What's different?

A: Honestly, how modern it's become.  I mean, it's just as modern, if not as modern as where we live.

Q: And where do you live?

A: New York.  So it's kind of like being in New York right now: the life, the way people are interacting, the restaurants, all the fun activities they have.  It's amazing.

Q: So 12 years ago when you came here, that didn't exist as much?

A: No.  Seeing that, especially for the youth, they're literally riding motorcycles...  What I've noticed, honestly the first thing, is how many young girls are working now, that are in the workforce.  It's unbelievable.

Q: In stores...

A: Yeah.  It's amazing how much more forward and really progressive they've gotten.

~ anonymous Palestinian American woman, "Tourists: What surprised you in Palestine?," The Ask Project, 1:40 mark, February 2, 2023

Margherita Stancati on Israeli settler violence in the West Bank

Since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, the building of Israeli settlements—considered illegal by most countries—has undermined efforts to create a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Settler groups and Israeli authorities say many Palestinian hamlets in the West Bank were built without permits and are illegal.  Some of them were established in areas later declared military zones, archaeological sites or nature reserves and demolished. Israeli and Palestinian rights groups say the overarching aim is to forcibly expel Palestinian residents from parts of the West Bank.

Pro-settler groups and some far-right Israeli politicians are pushing for the formal annexation of settlements in the West Bank to Israel.

Settlers have attacked Palestinians in the past, but the current level of violence is unprecedented in frequency and intensity, rights groups say.  “The moment the war in Gaza started, settlers knew they had an opportunity because no one was looking,” said Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem.

Settler attacks have nearly doubled since Oct. 7 to an average of five a day, resulting in the killing of eight Palestinians, the U.N. said.  In nearly half of the attacks, Israeli forces accompanied or supported the settlers, it added.  A spokesman for Israel’s military said soldiers were required to intervene to stop violations by Israelis against Palestinians or their property and that, should soldiers fail to adhere to orders, they would be disciplined.

~ Margherita Stancati, "Palestinians in West Bank Flee After Settler Violence: ‘We Were Forced to Leave’Since the start of the war in Gaza, around 1,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank have left their homes," The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2023

Sabbatical Tommy on the life of Palestinians in the West Bank

I'm back in Jerusalem now.  And even though it took only about 25 minutes to go from Jericho back here to Jerusalem, it feels like we passed into a completely different world.  That place is a million miles away now.  There's a million thoughts going through my head.  I think one of the saddest things about this whole conflict is that the only time that Palestinians in the West Bank will ever really meet Israelis is at checkpoints like that.  They're very nasty and these checkpoints, they're staffed by young Israeli conscripts, soldiers.  Granted, they're fearing for their own lives.  They're worried about terrorists, but some of them are just very nasty towards anyone who shows up.  Sad.

~ Sabbatical Tommy, "'They Will Shoot You at the Checkpoint,' ps Trapped in Palestine," YouTube, 55:45 mark, December 1, 2023

Roger Waters on touring in Israel and the West Bank in 2006

That old story is 2005, I think.  I was on tour in Europe...  And suddenly in the middle of the tour in Europe my agent calls me and he says, "Look, there's a space of four days here.  We could stick a gig in."  Again, "Whatever."  "Yeah, Hayarkon Park, Tel Aviv."  "Okay, whatever."  So they put Hayarkon Park into my itinerary and I immediately started getting emails.  The first ones, interestingly, were from North Africa from Moroccans and Algerians.  And I'm going, "What?"  And then I started getting some from the occupied territories because the BDS movement had just started.  Literally, that was the year.  And I got an email from Omar Barghouti who I've since got to know very well over the years.  And he said, "Please don't" and explained everything.

So, in fact, the show was sold out and I cancelled that show, having heard that Hayarkan Park is built on Palestinians' grave and blood.  But I came to some sort of internal compromise because I knew very little about what was going on in Palestine.  And I moved the gig to an agricultural community where they grow chickpeas.  It's a sort of "peace village."  It has two names.  It's called, I think, Wahat al Salam in Arabic.  I may be wrong.  And in Hebrew, it's Neve Shalom.  And it's sort of half way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  And what's good about it is... it's Jews and Muslims and Arabs and Druze and Christians and Agnostics, and they all live together in this community growing chickpeas mainly.  And all their children go to school together and they teach, kind of, love and peace.

So we did a gig there.  We had 60,000 people came.  I think at the time it was the biggest gig there had ever been in Israel.  And it was a huge success and they were all, "Pink Floyd, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah" until the very end when I got up on my hind legs and said, "Now then, you are the generation of young Israelis who must make peace with your neighbors and blah, blah."  And they went from [Waters has his hands up to show cheering] "Roger, Roger, Roger!" to [Waters brings his down to show dead silence].  It was uncanny.  They went from that [hand up] to "What the fuck is he talking about?  We're not going to make peace with anybody.  Are you crazy?  They're animals."  I mean they didn't say all of that, but they went very, very quiet.  [Editor's note: Did Waters exaggerate this story?  See here.]

Anyway, we left and I went back the next year and went on an extended tour with a lovely lady called Allegra Pacheco... and we went all over the West Bank.  And it was chilling beyond anything I could ever have imagined.  To see back then in 2006, what was going on and the absolute disdain and disgust with which we, me, with a British passport in an UNWRA vehicle, was treated by all the young Israeli border guards and people.  I remember thinking at the time, if they're like that to me, what must they be like to the Palestinians? 

~ Roger Waters, TRT World interview, 0:55 mark, December 5, 2023

Bezalel Smotrich: "There are 2 million Nazis in Judea and Samaria who hate us"

In the budget that’s being approved today, there is no funding for new construction in Judea and Samaria [the biblical term for the West Bank], there is funding for security needs.  [among them checkpoints and civilian security squads and the weapons and equipment those teams would need] 

There are 2 million Nazis in Judea and Samaria, who hate us exactly as do the Nazis of Hamas-ISIS in Gaza.

Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister of Israel, "Smotrich defends boost in funds for settlers, saying they're used for security against 'Nazi' Palestinians," The Times of Israel, November 27, 2023

(Smotrich tells The Times of Israel that the budget update being sent for cabinet approval today includes NIS 390 million for beefing up security and security infrastructure in the West Bank.)

Smotrich speaking at a press conference on August 9, 2023

Avi Shlaim on the Israel-Palestine peace process under Benjamin Netanyahu

The peace process is a charade.  It's all process and no peace.  It's worse than a charade because it gives Israel just the cover that it needs to pursue its aggressive colonial project on the West Bank.  The present government is hellbent on settlement expansion and settlement expansion is theft.  Land grabbing and peace making don't go together.  It's one or the other.  And by its actions, if not by its words, this government has opted for land grabbing.

This government has accelerated Jewish settlement in and around occupied Arab East Jerusalem in defiance of international law.  This government continues to build the wall on the West Bank.  It calls it a security barrier and it claims that its purpose security.  But a much more important purpose of the wall is land grabbing.  The wall is illegal.  Maybe good fences make good neighbors, but not when the fence is built in the middle of the neighbor's garden.

So Netanyahu is like the man who pretends to be negotiating the division of the pizza while he keeps eating it.  There is no Palestinian leader, however moderate, who is prepared to make peace on these ludicrous terms.

~ Professor Avi Shlaim, "Prof. Avi Shlaim - Hamas is Not a Greater Obstacle to Peace Than Israel," OxfordUnion, 3:30 mark, April 29, 2015