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Special Report
Settlers or Squatters? Palestinian Land Under Siege By Dr. M. Reza Behnam
PHOTO BY MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
the Indigenous people, for example, cannot be described as the acts of a democratic state. It was an affront to democracy that Israel, a country that has shown such contempt for human rights and international law, was invited to attend President Joe Biden’s December 2021 virtual “Summit for Democracy.” Zionists, who have illegally seized Palestinian land, cannot be characterized as “settlers.” The terms squatter or colonist more accurately describe their intrusive actions. And “settlements” should be cast as colonies; what they truly are. Israel’s political culture of settlerism, militarism and ethos of supremacy were further solidified with the June 2021 accession of Naftali Bennett as prime minister—an exarmy commando who proudly boasted, “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there’s no Israeli squatters gather on Dec. 30, 2021 at a makeshift yeshiva (religious school) in the former problem with that.” colony of Homesh, demolished in 2005. Right‐wing extremists and former Homesh squatters Just two days after Bennett took office, are trying to rebuild the illegal colony, west of Nablus in the West Bank. hundreds of Israeli supremacists marched through the streets of occupied East ISRAEL TELLS ITSELF and the world that it is a democracy. ProJerusalem chanting “death to Arabs” and “a second Nakba is fessed democratic values, however, are merely a cover for the councoming.” try’s continued predatory policies. Israeli colonists have forged a powerful movement, with the poThe Israeli regime has no intention of giving up one inch of stolen litical muscle to collapse a government. In Bennett they have a Palestinian land. staunch ally. Described as Israel’s “settler-in-chief,” he has called After more than seven decades, Israel is the only modern state for the annexation of most of the West Bank. that refuses to define its territorial limits. Since its founding as a setColonization is the sine qua non of the Israeli state. According to tler-colonial state in 1948, Israel has been expanding into Palestinian a recent report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel and Syrian territories, altering its borders by brute force and treating now controls 85 percent of historic Palestine. occupied areas as its own sovereign territory. More than 680,000 Zionists (46 percent in East Jerusalem) now To secure control over its ill-gotten gains, Israel has made sure live on occupied land outside the internationally recognized borders to populate the land with and give support to Zionist colonists. of Israel. The population of Jewish colonists in the West Bank and “Settlerism” is a tool of domination, and violence is its defining East Jerusalem continues to grow at a faster rate than that of Israel characteristic. proper. All of this colonization in an area approximately the size of Terminology has always been problematic in how Israel is prethe state of Delaware. sented to the world. Colonizing, occupying, exploiting and brutalizing The illegality of Israel’s colonies is clearly outlined in Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which forbids an occupying power from transferring its population into the territory it occuDr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East. pies. In a meager attempt to describe the colonists who have 10
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
MARCH/APRIL 2022
