Saturday, September 2: Ethnic Cleansing in Real Time
Apartheid by any other name would smell as gross
There are almost no Palestinians remaining in a huge area of land stretching east from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho. Most of the communities who used to live in this area of the occupied West Bank have fled for their lives in recent months.
As a result, an area which covers about 150 square kilometers has been deserted because of intensifying apartheid Israeli settler violence and land seizures, backed by the fascist Israeli army and state institutions. The near-total emptying of the region’s Palestinian population shows the colonizer’s slow but gradual process of ethnic cleansing is continuing, effectively annexing large swathes of the occupied territory for exclusive (and illegal) Jewish settlement.
This article illustrates that to date, four Palestinian communities have been expelled from this region. In 2019, two groups of Palestinian families evacuated from the southern part of the area, near the Taybeh junction. Earlier this year in May, the 200 residents of Ein Samia dismantled their own homes and fled following endless settler violence. In July 2022, the 100-strong community of Ras a-Tin did the same. In early August, the 88 residents of al-Qabun were forced to abandon their homes.
Palestinians from several of these displaced communities described the same pattern in the article: Israeli settlers arrive with their herds and prevent them from grazing on land where Palestinians have grazed for decades; then armed settlers would proceed to harass the Palestinians day and night, even entering their houses, without the army or police intervening. They described the same, overwhelming feelings of fear and distress under the shadow of these settler invasions.
The corrupt apartheid Israeli authorities, alongside the settlers, have played a central role in the ongoing displacement. For years, the occupation has banned the Palestinian communities from any sort of construction; demolished their homes; denied them connection to water and electricity; stopped them from paving roads; even issuing demolition orders for schools built with funds from the European Union. As if this wasn’t enough, they’ve also established, recognized, and fervently defended the illegal Jewish settlements. And now, of course, they stand by during the settler violence.
All this comes as the West Bank is engulfed in a crisis of growing violence involving an increasing number of deadly attacks by Palestinians against occupying Israelis, growing mob violence by bottom-feeding Israeli settlers, and wave after wave of lethal Israeli military raids into Palestinian neighborhoods and cities.
Side Items
Hunting Palestinians: Ameed al-Jaghoub was unarmed and rushing to help a wounded man when he was shot in the back of the head during a raid by apartheid Israel in the occupied West Bank village of Beita last month. He remains critically ill in intensive care, with limited hope of survival and no hope of full recovery. Mobile phone footage of the moment the 33-year-old was shot is among the clearest documentation in recent years of the casual use of lethal force by apartheid Israeli troops against unarmed Palestinians. al-Jaghoub’s case is the latest to be highlighted by human rights groups, who say that casualty rates from what they describe as "unjustified" use of force are at their highest in two decades
Ta’Kiya Young: Yesterday, cops in Ohio released bodycam footage showing an officer fatally shooting Ta’Kiya Young in her car on August 24. Her family has called the shooting a “gross misuse of power and authority” against a pregnant Black woman. Sean Walton, an attorney representing Young’s family, said the video is clear evidence that the shooting of the 21-year-old woman was unjustified and he called for the officer to be fired and charged immediately. This is a story that we’ve seen play out time and time again. No suspension, no loss of job or jail sentence will be enough to bring Ta’Kiya back to her family
End of Margaritaville: The singer/songwriter known as Jimmy Buffett, who rose to fame off the back of white beach bum soft rock anthems, died yesterday at the age of 76. Buffett, ever the American, turned his niche songwriting success into a billion-dollar empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen drinks, the most capitalist of outcomes. To be completely honest, his music isn’t my cup of tea, but we all know it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, and we’ve got Jimmy to thank for that knowledge