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Britain stands against oppression in Palestine… by supplying F-35s

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 11, 2026

So, Britain announced with much fanfare this week that it was imposing sanctions on Israel’s illegal settlements in Palestine. Note that the sanctions are not against the Israeli state, but rather a much narrower definition: Israeli entities in the Occupied Territories.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham claimed that the move was an example of Britain giving international leadership to stand against oppression and injustice.

Addressing the British Parliament, Burnham said: “In this difficult and dangerous world, Britain has to stand for something, Britain has to show leadership, Britain has to stand for fairness against injustice… That is what the British people expect of us, and that is what this government will do.”

Several other European states and Canada have also joined the British-led initiative to ban trade and investment with companies doing business in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank.

Israel’s occupation is illegal under international law, yet Britain, the European Union and the United States have done nothing in the way of imposing sanctions. Sanctions are something the West prefers to impose on Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, North Korea, among others.

In announcing the sanctions, the United Kingdom’s foreign minister Ed Miliband told the House of Commons that “Britain was a country that upholds its values at home and around the world, fighting against oppression and suffering, and standing up for what is right.”

The pious tones from London about Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” are not convincing.

For starters, the supposed sanctions do not cover British components for the F-35 fighter jets that the United States sells to Israel. The British parts are crucial for flying the US-made stealth aircraft. The warplane has played a major role in razing Gaza to the ground. Also not included in the sanctions are drones and surveillance equipment that British firms supply to the Israeli military. All those components are crucial for enabling the nearly three-year genocidal violence that Israel has conducted in Gaza.

If the British government were serious about “standing against oppression,” it would go a lot further than focusing on violations by Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories. The pogroms and construction of new settlements are carried out with the full assistance of the Israeli state, not just by gun-wielding fanatical settlers. Britain and other Western states have provided the legal and diplomatic cover for Israeli war crimes.

In any case, the supposed measures against Israeli business and exports from the West Bank are minimal. A recent Al Jazeera investigation found that Britain has billions of dollars invested in companies that are intimately involved in illegal settlement building. We can be sure that London is not going to cancel investments.

Total British-Israeli trade is estimated at $8 billion a year, including lucrative military items. The amount of business that Britain does with the Occupied Territories is about 1 per cent of its total trade with Israel.

Burnham and Miliband said the British government did not support boycott and divestment sanctions against the state of Israel. Both of them were at pains to emphasize that the measures are nominally limited to the violations going on in the Occupied Territories, not what Israel is doing right across Palestinian land, including Gaza, which is a genocide.

So there you have it. Britain’s “moral leadership” is nothing but tokenism and duplicity.

Should we expect anything else? After all, as former British diplomat Craig Murray pointed out this week, Burnham’s government has decided to give top-secret information for building cruise missiles to the corrupt Kiev regime. Murray warns that the Storm Shadow missiles will soon end up being sold on the black market, given the rampant corruption of Ukraine under the Zelensky cabal.

Britain is also supplying this NeoNazi regime with long-range drones that are being used to target Moscow and Russian civilians.

Is this standing up against oppression and for supposed British values?

What’s really behind London’s belated show of concern for Palestinians?

As Burnham and Miliband alluded, it’s all about Britain appearing to show international leadership. It’s a cheap way to burnish London’s “moral posturing” as a defender of “humanitarian values.”

Israel has hit back with the usual denunciations of “anti-semitism” and by closing down the British consulate in East Jerusalem. But for London, these repercussions are bearable for the bigger gains of British international PR.

As noted above, the lion’s share of its lucrative trade with Israel will go on, business as usual.

The other key motive for the Burnham government is that it realizes that a majority of the British public has become staunchly opposed to the Israeli regime. The three-year genocide has opened the eyes of many Britons (and those of other Western nations) to the historical injustices and illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. Israel is increasingly seen as a pariah, apartheid state that should be prosecuted for war crimes.

Britain’s role as the former colonial power in the Zionist annexation of Palestine is one of deep complicity and shame.

Andy Burnham was shoehorned into Downing Street to take over from the hopeless and hapless Labour leader Keir Starmer. The British establishment has bet on Burnham to shore up its imperialist interests by boosting military spending and deepening involvement in the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

However, Burnham’s popularity has quickly worn off as he looks like Starmer 2.0.

The tokenistic moves to support Palestinian rights and oppose Israeli violations are a cynical electioneering ploy. By talking up sanctions against Israeli illegal settlements, Burnham is calculating that it will garner votes from the growing public anger over the genocide.

But the measures that London is taking are negligible. They amount to a polite tap on the wrist of the Netanyahu regime as it continues its genocide.

Britain is fuelling the genocide by Israel, as it is with the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. British duplicity is as legion as its hypocrisy.

September 12, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Comments Off on Britain stands against oppression in Palestine… by supplying F-35s

Mark Levin Trashes the Constitution to Protect Violent West Bank Settlers

By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | September 8, 2026

Mark Levin is at it again. He is livid over a decision by the UK government to ban trade with violent illegal settlers in the West Bank. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said this week the UK will ban imports of all goods from settlements in the occupied West Bank, in addition to services including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate, and advertising for settlements.

For Levin and the Zionists in Israel and the United States, a boycott of Kahanist settlers is antisemitism, the same as public criticism of Israel over its slaughter of Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, is hatred of Jews.

Levin considers himself a constitutional lawyer. However, his interpretation of the US Constitution is highly selective. As an ardent and outspoken Zionist and defender of apartheid and genocide, he believes a boycott of Israel is not protected by the First Amendment. The right to boycott was reaffirmed in 1982 with a Supreme Court ruling on NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. It held that nonviolent political boycotts are a form of protected speech. However, this is irrelevant when it comes to Israel.

The case centered around a civil-rights boycott of white-owned businesses in Mississippi. The Court upheld the right to peaceful advocacy, association, and political expression that were integral to the campaign.

In 2022, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed Arkansas’ anti-boycott contracting legislation. The majority determined that the law governed commercial purchasing choices rather than safeguarding speech. In February 2023, the Supreme Court decided not to review an appeal.

However, court rulings in Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas have upheld the right to boycott as as a protected form of political expression under the First Amendment, challenging the legality of anti-BDS laws across the United States.

“Close to 40 states across the U.S. have laws that require ending contracts with and/or divesting from companies that engage in antisemitic boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel,” Levin posted to social media on September 7.

These states whose combined GDP is significant should publicly make clear to countries such as the UK that companies that engage in BDS because of their decisions will face consequences under state anti-BDS laws. By the way, Florida and Texas combined have a much larger GDP than the UK.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) movement is now illegal in 38 states. Congress has also considered anti-boycott legislation. In 2019, the Senate passed S.1, which contains anti-boycott provisions. In 2023, Republicans, including Marco Rubio, reintroduced the Combating BDS Act.

Most Americans oppose anti-BDS laws by a wide margin. 72% oppose laws penalizing people who boycott Israel while 22% supported such laws, according to the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll.

Levin is not opposed to BDS if it focuses on the correct target. In 2021, for instance, he demanded a BDS-style boycott of big tech and major television networks in response to criticism of Israel. “He argues that the way to fight against distortions and false claims, and to counter the media censors, is take a page from the anti-Israel activists’ playbook,” reported the Jerusalem News Syndicate in 2021.

Does Levin disagree with the colonial protests against British goods in the 1760s and 1770s that led to the Boston Tea Party? Does he believe the Montgomery bus boycott in the mid-1950s was illegitimate? How about the United Farm Workers boycotts in the 1960s, or the NAACP Mississippi boycott of white-owned businesses, also in the 60s?

No, probably not. The only legitimate opposition to BDS concerns Israel. The Zionist state gets a pass and the Constitution is null and void when confronted with spurious accusations of antisemitism.

September 8, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Mark Levin Trashes the Constitution to Protect Violent West Bank Settlers

US ambassador threatens Britain with economic retaliation over Israeli settlement trade ban

The Cradle | September 8, 2026

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said Washington will certainly hit back if Britain proceeds with trade sanctions targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, telling BBC that a response could come from the federal government and from individual US states.

Huckabee said acting in this way against “a partner, Israel” risked a “huge economic impact on British businesses,” which he warned could find themselves “banned” from operating “in a number of states.”

He told BBC the planned ban on illegal Israeli settlement goods would be “discrimination against the Jewish people,” singling out Florida as a state that could move against British trade.

The ambassador had already accused the British government of “Jew hate” over the weekend, responding to criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza by British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who is himself Jewish.

Florida Republican Congressman Randy Fine issued a parallel threat, saying legislation he pushed through as a state lawmaker “would ban any British company forced to comply from doing business with any state or local government in Florida.”

Firms joining the boycott would also be shut out of the state if they needed permits or tax dealings with authorities to function, he said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in a filmed statement, said Britain would land on “the wrong side of history,” calling the step “a grave miscalculation” and “a gross interference in the democratic elections of a sovereign nation.”

This comes after UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham moved to impose a full ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, along with possible sanctions on Israeli ministers and individual settlers.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has publicly attacked British Foreign Secretary Miliband, calling his statement on the E1 settlement project patronizing.

The illegal E1 settlement bloc would cut the occupied West Bank in half, isolate it from occupied East Jerusalem, and bury any prospect of a Palestinian state, an outcome Israeli officials have stated as the goal.

September 8, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on US ambassador threatens Britain with economic retaliation over Israeli settlement trade ban

Israel seizes 1,152 more dunums as West Bank villages are turned into closed military zones

Palestinian Information Center – August 24, 2026

WEST BANK – Israeli occupation authorities have escalated settlement activity in the West Bank by issuing military orders to seize hundreds of dunums of Palestinian land, alongside settler sieges and forced displacement carried out under army protection.

The measures reflect clear coordination between the army and settler militias to empty large areas for settlement expansion.

Last Tuesday, Israeli forces issued a military order to seize around 1,152 dunums of land belonging to the towns of Sinjil, Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya and Qaryut, north of Ramallah.

The order aims to expand the Karmi Oz settlement and strengthen geographic links between settlements and outposts located between Nablus and Ramallah.

According to a report on settlement activity, the targeted land is spread across several areas in the three towns. The decision comes as part of Israeli government measures issued since 2023 to legalize settlement outposts, most notably Givat Harel and Givat Haroeh.

At the same time, settler attacks continue across West Bank villages, accompanied by sieges, restrictions and forced displacement under the protection of Israeli occupation forces.

The attacks have been concentrated in Jalud and Qusra, south of Nablus, Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, and Khallat Al-Hummus in Masafer Yatta.

In Jalud, Mahmoud Al-Tubasi and his family were forced to evacuate their home after a two-month siege that included blocking the road and cutting off water and electricity. Armed settlers later stormed the home and threatened to kill or burn the family.

In Qusra, families in the Ras Al-Ain area have faced siege and attacks since the beginning of the year amid attempts to establish a new settlement outpost.

The escalation peaked on August 9, when settlers reinstalled their tents, blocked roads with stones and cut off electricity and water to the families.

Israeli forces then turned the area into a closed military zone, forced families to evacuate their homes and converted around 16 houses in Jabal Ras Al-Ain into military barracks and observation posts.

Israeli forces also imposed a curfew, closed shops and prevented Palestinian and international activists from reaching the besieged families with aid.

The report said these measures are taking place amid international silence, while the Israeli government continues to use claims of “military purposes” and the “legalization of outposts” as cover to seize more land and connect settlements to one another.

Experts opined that the ultimate goal is to fragment the West Bank and undermine any possibility of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state by turning villages into besieged enclaves that can be controlled and emptied of their residents.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel seizes 1,152 more dunums as West Bank villages are turned into closed military zones

Israel orders uprooting of trees on 316 dunums in West Bank for settlement expansion

MEMO | August 7, 2026

The Israeli military has issued eight orders to uproot trees and remove vegetation from 316 dunums of land across the occupied West Bank for settlement-related purposes, the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) said on Thursday.

A dunum is equivalent to 1,000 square metres.

In a statement issued on Thursday evening, the Palestinian government body said the orders require the removal of wild vegetation and olive trees from land identified in attached maps.

The eight orders cover a total of 316.636 dunums. Six of them target about 311 dunums in the northern governorate of Jenin, while the remaining two apply to the Nablus governorate and occupied East Jerusalem.

The commission said the vegetation clearance does not target isolated farmland but areas alongside main roads, expanding Israeli control on both sides of the roads and causing direct damage to olive trees and neighbouring agricultural land.

It warned that the Israeli authorities are using the orders to facilitate the establishment of settlements, saying the measures are intended to prepare the land for settlement infrastructure while restricting landowners’ access to and use of their property.

According to the commission, Israel has issued 59 orders since the beginning of 2026 to remove tree cover from 2,480 dunums of Palestinian-owned land. It added that around 60,000 dunums of Palestinian land have been seized during the 1,000 days of the Gaza war, which began on 8th October 2023.

Palestinians warn that such measures are paving the way for Israel to formally annex the occupied West Bank, which they say would undermine the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state as envisaged in relevant United Nations resolutions.

August 7, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel orders uprooting of trees on 316 dunums in West Bank for settlement expansion

Eliyahu, son of the Hebron massacre perpetrator, leads West Bank settlement expansion

Israeli settlers in the hills around Hebron [Mosab Shawer / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images]
By Malik Nabeel | The New Arab | July 31, 2026

Ramallah – The family of Palestinian Hussein al-Amleh in the town of Beit Ula, west of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank, was expelled from his land on 22 July after a settler vandalised a tent and sheep pen where al-Amleh and his son were staying. The incident took place as part of the expansion of a settlement outpost established a few metres west of the town about a year ago.

Its area of control has expanded to more than 1,300 dunams (1.3 square kilometres), designated as a “closed military zone” from which the original Palestinian landowners have been barred.

As one of the owners of the confiscated land, al-Amleh said that a settler named Eliyahu Goldstein, son of Baruch Goldstein, who carried out the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre that left 29 people dead and 125 others injured, drove them from the land after storming it.

Al-Amleh told The New Arab, “We tried to remove the settler and those with him, and demanded that they leave when they stormed the land… There were verbal confrontations between us, after which Eliyahu attacked and assaulted us. He was armed, while the Israeli occupation army stood by without moving or doing anything.”

He said he told soldiers that they were responsible for him, to which the army officer replied that al-Amleh had to listen to Eliyahu and follow his instructions. The answer prompted al-Amleh to reply, “This is our land. We were born here, and our children and grandparents were born here.”

Since 22 July, 2025, Baruch Goldstein’s son Eliyahu has expanded the seizure of land in Beit Ula. He has placed a caravan there, from which he launches daily attacks, detains landowners and hands them over to the Israeli occupation army for interrogation, as happened with two other residents following the incident involving the Al-Amleh family.

During the assault, Eliyahu detained al-Amleh’s son, Mahmoud, and took him to a military post adjacent to the separation wall west of the town before handing him over to the Israeli occupation army. Mahmoud was then transferred to the Etzion interrogation centre north of Hebron.

“All of this happened simply because my son and I refused to leave our land,” al-Amleh told The New Arab.

He added that he owns dozens of dunams in the western area of Beit Ula, which Eliyahu has since taken control of, and had relied on them for farming, grazing and overnight stays. He had erected a tent there and established a small sheep farm known as an “izba”. However, according to his account, the settler vandalised it, prevented him from grazing his livestock, and threatened to shoot him and confiscate the sheep if he returned to the land.

Eliyahu is described by Palestinian residents as one of the most extremist and violent settlers in the greater Hebron area, with accounts alleging that he does not hesitate to open fire if anyone approaches him.

At the beginning of April, Eliyahu shot Iyad Al-Sarahin in the abdomen, causing severe intestinal damage and injury to his liver. During the same period, he also shot another person in the hand while residents were attempting to reach their land.

Jamal Taleb, an adviser at the Land Research Centre in Beit Ula, told The New Arab, “Eliyahu was raised in schools of Jewish extremism, just like his father.”

Taleb said Eliyahu began his settlement activities in areas east of Hebron and its Old City before “moving last year to Beit Ula, which had never previously witnessed any settlement presence on its land”.

Taleb pointed to the relationship between Eliyahu and the Israeli forces, saying, “On more than one occasion, we have seen officers in the Israeli occupation army salute him militarily, even though he is not a soldier.”

He added that Eliyahu works to “steal sheep and then claim ownership of them. His primary task is to destroy agricultural land, ruin farming and force residents to abandon and leave their land.“

Taleb added that the settler relies on foreign workers to carry out his attacks, saying, “He has Thai workers who work with him. He uses them to pursue residents with agricultural tractors, and they move in a provocative manner to stir up dust while farmers are on their land. He is then accompanied by one settler, who acts as his assistant.”

Eliyahu also appears to enjoy official backing from the Israeli government. Taleb said he is “strongly supported by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, to the extent that no one dares oppose him or refuse his requests”.

Taleb also said that Eliyahu repeatedly tells residents, “Your turn will come. I will seize this land, and one day we will expel all of you from Areas B and C,” referring to the areas designated under the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Taleb confirmed that Eliyahu possesses the key to the gate in the separation wall that separates Beit Ula from the territories occupied in 1948. He uses it to travel to the settlement of Nahusha, built on the town’s historic lands beyond the wall.

Taleb cited an incident on 11 July, when activists from the Arab-Jewish movement “There Is Room for All of Us” arrived to accompany residents to their land for the harvest. He said they had received prior approval from the Israeli occupation army, “but Eliyahu arrived at the site accompanied by occupation forces, expelled the residents and the solidarity activists, and the forces fired tear gas on his orders.”

He added that Eliyahu had previously set fire to farmers’ land while they were attempting to reach it.

Eliyahu also uses drones to monitor farmers’ movements and rarely moves without covering his face. “Experts stand behind him, providing support and assistance, even if they are not present at the site.”

Taleb said Eliyahu possesses “all the machinery and equipment necessary to carry out acts of destruction, bulldozing, cutting and other operations.”

Eliyahu is known for not remaining in one place, instead moving between different areas to establish new settlement projects.

Taleb described him as “highly aggressive”. He previously lived in the settlements of Kiryat Arba east of Hebron, Susiya to the south and Adora to the west. He is also active in the northern Jordan Valley.

Taleb said Eliyahu “only establishes settlement outposts in cultivated, exploited areas adjacent to the boundaries of Area B because one of his objectives is to expand settlement gradually from Area C into Area B. In contrast, we are pursuing a legal path to prove ownership of lands whose Palestinian ownership the occupation does not recognise.”

Meanwhile, Issa Abdul Hafiz, one of the owners of the land seized by Eliyahu, said the settler has prevented him from accessing more than 40 dunams (40,000 square metres) that he owns, in addition to hundreds of dunams belonging to his family.

Abdul Hafiz told The New Arab that “the settler Eliyahu has escalated his attacks in recent months, destroying more than 150 olive trees and other fruit-bearing trees, and preventing family members from grazing their sheep on their own land”, stressing that this pattern of attacks has affected hundreds of dunams, all treated in the same way.

Abdul Hafiz said the settlement expansion extends beyond the outpost established by Eliyahu, explaining that “he expands his settlement activities every day, goes beyond the boundaries of the area classified as a ‘closed military zone’, and attacks any farmer who reaches his land.”

He confirmed that Eliyahu’s attacks have extended to the outskirts of the neighbouring villages of Kharas and Nuba, adjacent to Beit Ula.

Abdul Hafiz also said that the Israeli settler burned hundreds of dunams planted with wheat, driving his agricultural tractor through the area and setting fires between the fields over recent weeks.

From the Ibrahimi Mosque to settlement expansion

Rashed Al-Tamimi, a former activist with the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, recalled an earlier encounter with Eliyahu dating back about 13 years, when he established a settlement outpost in the Jabal Jalis area east of Hebron after forcibly seizing a plot of land there.

Al-Tamimi told The New Arab, “Eliyahu set up a caravan, brought settler Jewish families to it and established their presence there. The outpost now includes around 20 settlement homes.”

Al-Tamimi described Eliyahu as “an expert in establishing settlement outposts”, explaining that he moves between Palestinian areas to create new outposts “without any justification, or even a legal cover, using excessive force through carrying weapons, opening fire, and relying on protection from the Israeli occupation army. He establishes the outpost, gives it legitimacy, hands it over to settlers, and then leaves the area for another one.”

Al-Tamimi also recalled another incident from about five years ago, when Eliyahu attempted to establish a settlement outpost on his privately owned land in Jabal Jalis.

He said, “Eliyahu came to our area in Jabal Jalis and tried to establish a settlement outpost on my private land. When he stormed my land, my son and I rushed out, confronted him, argued with him and prevented him from establishing the outpost. He then filed a complaint against me with the Israeli police in the Ja’abra area, east of Hebron.”

Al-Tamimi said Eliyahu received support from settlement organisations, including “Kach” and “Gush Emunim”, which did not condemn the 1994 Ibrahimi Mosque massacre.

He added that the settler has carried weapons during his movements for years, but “he used to wear civilian clothes. Recently, however, he moves only in military uniform, despite not being a soldier.”

Article translated from Arabic by Afrah Almatwari. To read the original, click here.

August 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Comments Off on Eliyahu, son of the Hebron massacre perpetrator, leads West Bank settlement expansion

The spark in Tell: How a village resistance disrupted Israel’s West Bank strategy

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 25, 2026

During a military raid on the small town of Tell, southwest of Nablus, a moment of direct defiance shattered the illusion of total Palestinian submission.

Faced with relentless military incursions, land confiscation, and settler harassment and violence, local villagers and farmers refused to retreat.

In the confrontation that followed, a single Palestinian disarmed an Israeli soldier and opened fire on the invading forces near the illegal Havat Gilad settlement outpost, killing two soldiers and wounding three others.

What followed was the predictable, unyielding fury of the occupation: Israeli forces and state-backed armed settlers immediately launched a series of raids across Tell and neighboring communities, killing four Palestinians, setting fire to homes, and converting residential buildings into field interrogation centers.

In a swift collective punishment campaign, Israeli occupation troops detained over 70 Palestinians—including more than 40 in Tell alone—while expanding military incursions into Jenin, Tubas, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Hebron (Al-Khalil), Bethlehem, and Jericho.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz promptly ordered a “wide-scale military operation,” while UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese unequivocally condemned the combined army-settler assaults as “pogroms against defenseless civilians,” reiterating calls for an immediate arms embargo and trade sanctions against Israel.

Yet to understand the spark in Tell, one must understand the explosive pressure cooker that the occupied West Bank has become.

Netanyahu’s primitive calculus

Netanyahu’s immediate response to the incident in Tell was not a departure from policy, but the activation of an old, entrenched doctrine: every act of Palestinian resistance—no matter how localized—must be weaponized to accelerate the state-sponsored theft of Palestinian land.

For decades, Israel’s security apparatus has used local resistance as cover to achieve long-standing demographic and territorial ambitions. Under the current far-right coalition, this strategy has reached unprecedented levels of speed and brutality.

The scale of destruction

Since October 2023, while global media attention focused primarily on the horrors in Gaza, Israel systematically expanded its offensive across the occupied West Bank:

  • Over 1,090 Palestinians—including at least 239 children—have been killed by Israeli forces and state-backed armed settlers.
  • Over 6,800 Palestinians have been injured by live ammunition, shrapnel, and physical assaults, with settler attacks alone accounting for a surging majority of recent civilian injuries.
  • More than 10,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced due to home demolitions, violent settler rampages, and severe access restrictions. Entire Bedouin and rural communities across the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley have been systematically depopulated and cleansed.
  • Over 11,000 Palestinians have been swept into detention through military night raids, held under arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial.
  • Under Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who was granted official authority over civilian affairs in the West Bank—the Israeli government declared tens of thousands of dunams of Palestinian territory as “state land,” marking the largest continuous land grabs since the Oslo Accords. Concurrently, dozens of illegal settler outposts were retroactively legalized, and thousands of new settlement housing units were advanced.

Strategic purpose behind the escalation

Israel’s systematic campaign in the West Bank serves three distinct political and military objectives for Netanyahu and his cabinet:

One, preempting a second front

Israel recognized that if the West Bank rose up in full-scale, organized rebellion while its military was locked in a grueling, unending genocidal campaign in Gaza, containing both entities would prove virtually impossible. Having failed to crush the Palestinian resistance in Gaza despite its overwhelming military force, Israel applied heavy-handed, preemptive violence in the West Bank to terrorize the population into total submission.

Two, shielding Netanyahu through far-right leverage

To survive the internal political fallout of October 7 and his military’s failure to achieve its stated war aims, Netanyahu needed to keep his coalition intact. He granted far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir absolute freedom to execute their ideological agenda: expanding illegal settlements, annexing Area C, arming settler militias, and repeatedly invading and altering the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Three, masking failure with offensive posturing

Desperate to avoid appearing as a helpless leader trapped in a multi-front war of attrition, Netanyahu used military raids, aerial drone strikes, and armored incursions into West Bank refugee camps (from Jenin and Tulkarm to Nablus) to project an image of strength and control to his right-wing domestic constituency.

Settler terror and the bankruptcy of the PA

This campaign of state-sponsored expansion was smoothed by two major factors on the ground:

Unchecked settler paramilitarism

Armed by Itamar Ben-Gvir’s National Security Ministry, violent settler gangs have been fully integrated into state-sanctioned paramilitaries. Settlers launch routine, organized pogroms against Palestinian villages—burning homes, destroying olive groves, stealing livestock, and firing live ammunition at civilians—with the direct protection and active participation of the Israeli military.

The subjugation and inaction of the PA

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has completely abandoned its fundamental duty to protect its people. Rather than formulating a national defense strategy or providing at least symbolic leadership to resist land theft, the PA security forces continued security coordination with the occupation.

The PA actively cracked down on local resistance fighters, confiscated weapons, and suppressed public demonstrations, acting as a sub-contracted administrative force managing Palestinian subjugation on Israel’s behalf.

Why mainstream analysis fails

Most media and political analysts will inevitably frame the current escalation around narrow parliamentary metrics. They will point to upcoming Israeli elections, arguing that Netanyahu is provoking violence purely to consolidate the far-right vote, satisfy Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and outflank his political rivals.

International human rights bodies will issue familiar warnings, humanitarian organizations like MSF will voice alarm over raids on medical facilities like Nablus Specialized Hospital, and political blocs like the European Union will issue toothless calls for “all parties to de-escalate.”

Meanwhile, the United States government continues to funnel billions of dollars in heavy weaponry to Israel, reinforcing an episode of historical complicity.

What these analyses consistently fail to grasp is the reality of Palestinian agency.

They treat Palestinians as passive victims waiting for international intervention or political shifts in Tel Aviv and Washington. But the explosion in Tell proved that the status quo of total encirclement, daily humiliation, and existential dispossession is inherently unsustainable.

The rebellion did not start where standard military analysts expected it to—it ignited in a small farming town among people who decided that fighting back was the only response left to quiet, gradual annihilation.

The West Bank will not remain silent forever; it will rise at the time and place of its people’s choosing, rendering conventional political forecasts useless.

July 26, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Comments Off on The spark in Tell: How a village resistance disrupted Israel’s West Bank strategy

Nablus: When the killer becomes the victim

By Tamer Ajrami | MEMO | July 25, 2026

In the occupied West Bank, the story often starts too late.

It starts when an Israeli settler is killed, injured, or frightened. It starts when Israeli officials speak, when the army enters Palestinian villages, and when headlines describe a “clash” or a “terror attack”. Suddenly, the settler becomes the victim, the Palestinian village becomes the threat, and the occupation disappears from the story.

But Nablus cannot be understood from the middle of the story.

For years, Palestinian villages around Nablus have lived under daily pressure: land seizures, settlement expansion, military raids, road closures, intimidation, and settler violence.

This is not a normal conflict between two equal communities. It is a system where one side expands with weapons, army protection, and state support, while the other side is expected to remain silent.

That is why the recent events of yesterday near Nablus cannot simply be called a “clash”. The word sounds neutral, but the reality is not neutral. A clash suggests two equal sides. But there is no equality between armed settlers living on occupied land and Palestinians living in villages surrounded by settlements, checkpoints, and military control.

Of course, individual settlers can suffer. Death is death. Fear is fear. No human pain should be mocked or ignored. But the pain of one incident cannot erase the larger reality. A settler can be a victim in one moment, while still being part of a wider system that causes fear, dispossession, and daily suffering for Palestinians.

This is the contradiction: the executioner becomes the victim only when the story is cut away from its history.

When the headline begins with Israeli pain, Palestinian pain becomes invisible. The settler becomes a civilian under attack. The Palestinian becomes a security threat. The settlement becomes a neighbourhood. The occupied village becomes a battlefield. The army becomes “protection”. Resistance becomes “terrorism”. And the occupation, which created this whole reality, disappears.

This is not by accident. This is how power protects itself.

The settlement movement has always tried to make its presence in the West Bank look normal. It wants the world to see settlers as ordinary residents, not as people living inside a political project built on occupied land. It wants attacks on Palestinians to look like isolated events, while every Palestinian reaction is used to say that Palestinians are violent and must be controlled.

But the truth is simple: a system built on domination cannot bring security.

It can bring temporary control. It can create fear. It can silence people for a while. It can build walls, checkpoints, settler roads, and military zones. But it cannot bring peace. When land is taken, when homes are attacked, when settlers enter Palestinian villages, and when the army protects one side only, violence is not an accident. It becomes part of the system.

This does not mean every settler carries the same guilt. It does not mean every Israeli death should be dismissed. It means that individual suffering should not be used to hide collective power. The victimhood of the settler cannot be used to erase the long victimhood of the occupied.

Yet this is what often happens.

The Palestinian is asked to explain his anger. The settler is rarely asked to explain why he is there. The village is asked to condemn violence. The settlement is rarely asked to justify its existence. The occupied are told to stay calm, while the occupier calls control “security”.

That is why the phrase “when the executioner becomes the victim” matters. It is not a denial of human pain. It is a refusal to forget the political reality.

A settler killed in one incident may be a victim of that incident. But the settlement project remains a machine of dispossession. The grief of one Israeli family does not erase the daily fear of Palestinian families living beside armed settlers, checkpoints, and expanding settlements. One tragic day does not erase decades of occupation.

Nablus shows this clearly. The more Israel protects settlements, the more tension it creates. The more settlers expand, the more Palestinian space shrinks. The more Palestinian life is controlled, the more resistance becomes likely. Then, when violence erupts, Israel presents itself as surprised, as if it had no role in creating the conditions.

This is the oldest trick of domination: create the wound, then cry when the wound bleeds.

The question after Nablus is not only who fired first. That question matters, but it is not enough. The deeper question is: who built the reality where armed settlers, occupied villages, military raids, and daily humiliation became normal?

Who allowed settlers to move through Palestinian land with confidence, while Palestinians move through their own land with fear? Who turned settlements into protected facts, and villages into security zones? Who decided that Palestinian life could be restricted every day, then acted shocked when this reality produced violence?

Until these questions are answered, every incident will be treated as a beginning, when it is actually only another consequence.

When the executioner becomes the victim, the world must be careful. It must see human pain, but it must also see the political structure. It must mourn the dead, but it must not forget the system that keeps producing death.

Because the real tragedy is not only that people die. The real tragedy is that occupation creates the conditions for death, then asks the world to feel sorry when those conditions return to its own doorstep.

July 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Comments Off on Nablus: When the killer becomes the victim

Complicit: How the West is Helping Israel Seize the West Bank

Al Jazeera Investigates | July 16, 2026

An undercover investigation by Al Jazeera reveals how western donors evade charity law to provide aid to illegal Israeli settlements.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. More than 230 of them are children. Attacks by settlers on rural Palestinian communities have increased, destroying property and capturing livestock, driving families from their homes. At the same time, the Israeli military has launched a large-scale assault on the densely populated Jenin refugee camp.

This film provides a comprehensive picture of the tactics the Israeli government uses to support the settlers and then, through infrastructure and building programmes, annex Palestinian land.
Western governments claim to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and uphold international law. However, undercover reporters from Al Jazeera expose how donors based in some Western countries fund the expansion of illegal settlements.

Al Jazeera journalists secretly film meetings with pro-settler organisations in Israel, claiming to be donors based in the UK looking to make large contributions to their projects. They’re told how funds can be paid as tax-deductible donations to charities in the UK and Canada who then pay the money on to their organisations. It is unlawful for charities in the UK and Canada to use donations to support the illegal settlement of the West Bank.

The Israeli organisations tell our undercover reporters how donations can be used to campaign for the demolition of Palestinian homes and provide military-grade security equipment such as drones and night vision cameras to settlers. We are also told that funds can be used to buy guns for settlers in occupied East Jerusalem and equipment for soldiers serving in the Israeli army.

The Israeli organisations are aware that their activities are considered unlawful in Canada and the UK and suggest ways to disguise the intended purpose of the donations, routing the funds through affiliated third parties and, in some cases, misreporting the true nature of their spending.

Charities in the UK and Canada are required to do extensive due diligence on how funds paid overseas are spent and to ensure they comply with the law. Al Jazeera’s evidence points to serious failings in this process.

July 19, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Complicit: How the West is Helping Israel Seize the West Bank

Israeli forces demolish Jerusalem residential building as al-Rifa’iya school faces demolition in al-Khalil

Palestinian Information Center – July 8, 2026

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israeli occupation forces demolished a residential building in Sur Baher, southeast of occupied Jerusalem, on Wednesday, while carrying out demolition operations west of al-Khalil.

The Wadi Hilweh Information Center said Israeli forces, accompanied by bulldozers, stormed Sur Baher and demolished a residential building made up of four apartments belonging to Fuad Awadallah.

In al-Khalil, Israeli forces raided the Al-Ras area in the town of Idhna to carry out demolition operations.

The demolitions came as Israeli authorities gave Al-Rifa’iya School near Yatta, south of al-Khalil, 14 days before implementing a demolition order after an Israeli court rejected the final appeal against the decision.

Local and official sources said the school, located south of Al-Deirat village east of Yatta and affiliated with Khallet Al-Maiya municipality, serves 150 students from first to seventh grade. It was established in 2016.

The sources said the demolition could be carried out at any time during the 14-day period.

They stressed that education would continue even if the school is demolished, whether on the rubble, in caves, in tents or in the open air, to ensure students continue receiving their education.

Ten schools in the area, serving around 1,000 students, face the threat of demolition or could receive demolition notices at any time, according to the sources.

Al-Rifa’iya School is part of the “challenge schools” supervised by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and supported by international institutions in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control.

Israeli authorities justify such demolitions by citing construction without permits, a policy rights groups say is nearly impossible for Palestinians to overcome because Israel almost entirely refuses to grant building permits in these areas, serving settlement expansion.

Rights advocates say the demolition of schools in Masafer Yatta and southern al-Khalil is part of a policy aimed at undermining the right to education and pushing Palestinians to leave their land by depriving them of basic living conditions, in what they describe as a policy of silent displacement.

July 8, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Comments Off on Israeli forces demolish Jerusalem residential building as al-Rifa’iya school faces demolition in al-Khalil

“Crimson Thread” apartheid project threatens family already displaced in north Jordan Valley

International Solidarity Movement | July 5, 2026

A family – displaced from Khirbet Samra in July 2025 after years of constant harassment by occupation forces and violent settler Uri Cohen – moved to Atouf, where they purchased a plot of land, determined to defy the occupation’s efforts to destroy their livelihood.

Having to leave their home of more than 20 years was both deeply traumatic and hugely expensive. The 40 dunams in Atouf cost half a million shekels (about 160,000 USD) and transportation costs for all their livestock and belongings were high. Atouf is a primarily agricultural area and there is little grazing land; the family is therefore forced to feed their animals grain and hay. They have also had to spend 150,000 shekels (50,000 USD) on building pens spacious enough to protect their sheep from the heat. The costs of maintaining their flock of 800 sheep have proved unsustainable, and the family has had no choice but to sell 300 of them.

In early December 2025, less than six months after their arrival in Atouf, the family received a demolition order: their property is situated on the path of “Crimson Thread”, a Zionist project that entails the construction of a 22 km long military road with an apartheid fence and a 20m wide “buffer zone” running along eitherside. Stretching from Ein Shibli to Tayasir, the barrier will cut through — and off from one another — the communities of Atouf, Tammoun and Yarza.

On the occupation’s plans, the road cuts almost exactly through the middle of the family property; 36 dunums have already been confiscated, and in January 2026 demolition orders were issued for the remaining 4 dunums, which include the family’s house and the sheep pens.

The family, together with other families and the Tubas municipality appealed the demolition orders, submitting the landowners’ deeds, and the barrier project was temporarily suspended. But then, on June 7, the Israeli court ruled that in 5 of the 7 areas impacted by the project the excavation work could continue (the two sections in which the suspension order still applies are those in the vicinity of Khirbet Yarza). Building demolitions (32 across five sections, 9 of which are residential structures) are still under discussion in court.

Since June 13, the family have had to endure the constant presence of soldiers and bulldozers on their property. The military have installed caravans and tents and dug a trench between the 36 confiscated dunums and the family’s home and pens. Now, the bulldozers are at work preparing for the construction of the barrier; the digging has destroyed the pipes that transport water to the family’s crops and livestock. When a family member went to get water from a well that is situated on the family’s land he was accused by the occupation forces of stealing water.

The family, together with the whole community of Atouf and all the Palestinian villages threatened by “Crimson Thread” are calling for international media and institutional attention in order to expose the brutality of this project which is intended to bisect the Jordan Valley, further isolating Palestinian communities from one another and dramatically worsening their conditions of life.

“during the day they carry out cutting, bulldozing, and destruction works, while at night they fire burning illumination flares over the area. These are dropped near the livestock shelters, creating constant fear, as we worry they might fall onto animal fodder or plastic greenhouses and set everything on fire.” – a family member

July 5, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Comments Off on “Crimson Thread” apartheid project threatens family already displaced in north Jordan Valley

The West Bank’s creeping annexation moves from maps to law

The Cradle | July 1, 2026

Israel’s land registration drive in the occupied West Bank has taken shape without a formal declaration. It has moved through budgets and ministries, driven by routine administrative decisions that rarely draw sustained attention.

In mid-February, the Israeli government approved 244 million shekels for a sweeping land registration project in Area C of the occupied West Bank. Framed as an administrative measure, it transfers authority over land from the Civil Administration to the Israeli Land Registry under the Ministry of Justice.

Map of Areas A, B, and C established under the Oslo Accords.

That transfer folds large parts of the occupied West Bank into Israel’s legal system, advancing annexation through procedure rather than proclamation. The change appears technical on paper and carries clear political consequences.

More than 58 percent of Area C, nearly 1.9 million dunams (roughly 1,900 square kilometers), remains unregistered, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now. That unresolved legal status is now at the center of Israel’s latest initiative.

The roots of the issue stretch back decades. Under Jordanian administration between 1949 and 1967, only a portion of land was formally registered, following older British Mandate practices. After 1967, Israeli military orders froze settlement processes, leaving wide areas governed by customary ownership and inherited documents.

That legacy now carries forward into the present. What was left unresolved is now being brought under a new legal framework.

Land registration as control

The plan sets out to survey and register about 15 percent of these lands, roughly 290,000 dunams (around 290 square kilometers), before the end of the decade.

For Palestinian landholders, claims require detailed documentation and precise maps, often stretching back generations. In many cases, those records are incomplete or no longer available.

Where proof falls short, land can be classified as state property. Once registered that way, it can be redirected toward settlement construction or agricultural outposts, while former owners lose access.

Legal ground shifts

Recent cabinet decisions have reshaped the legal terrain that governed land for decades.

Pre-1967 Jordanian restrictions that once limited property sales to Palestinians are being overridden, opening the door for companies and settler groups to acquire land inside densely populated Palestinian areas.

At the same time, prior approval requirements for transactions have been lifted. These procedures once allowed authorities to review claims and flag irregularities. Their removal speeds up transfers and reduces oversight.

Land records have also been opened for public review. For settlement groups, this offers a clearer path to identifying absentee ownership and pursuing contested claims.

These measures do not stop at Area C. They reach into Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) holds administrative powers under the Oslo framework. Israeli agencies are now positioned to intervene more directly, including demolishing Palestinian buildings and structures, under the guise of enforcing environmental standards, heritage protection, and water management.

In Hebron (Al-Khalil), planning authority in key areas has been transferred from the municipality to Israeli military control. In Bethlehem, a dedicated body now oversees the area around Rachel’s Tomb, channeling resources into nearby religious infrastructure.

Expansion on the hills

Legal change has moved in tandem with accelerated settlement activity.

A new plan outlines the establishment of outposts across dozens of strategic hilltops, each designed to establish a permanent presence through mobile homes and basic infrastructure.

More than 1 billion shekels have been allocated for roads linking the new outposts to existing settlements, folding them into the wider settlement network.

Settlement construction has risen sharply in recent years, with Peace Now reporting an 80 percent increase since 2022. Many outposts once considered unauthorized have since been retroactively approved.

Pastoral outposts form part of this expansion. Herds are used to assert control over grazing land, limiting Palestinian access, and extending the reach of settlement activity beyond built structures.

The E1 corridor east of Jerusalem remains central to these plans. Tenders have been issued for more than 3,400 housing units in the E1 area, linking Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem. If built, the project would sever the territorial continuity between Ramallah, occupied East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, effectively dividing the West Bank into two disconnected parts

A joint report by Peace Now and Kerem Navot found that shepherding outposts now give settlers control over around 14 percent of the occupied West Bank, or at least 786,000 dunams (786 square kilometers).

Displacement under pressure

On the ground, these changes are accompanied by rising pressure on Palestinian communities.

According to UN OCHA data, cited by Amnesty International, 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding communities in the occupied West Bank experienced full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026 following settler attacks and related access restrictions.

In parts of the Jordan Valley and the hills around Ramallah, attacks by settler groups have led to the destruction of homes and infrastructure. In some cases, entire communities have left overnight.

In one case, a community in Al-Mu’arajat was completely displaced after homes were demolished and infrastructure looted. In Ras Ein al-Auja, near Jericho, Bedouin families were forced to leave after settler outposts cut off access to grazing land and undermined their livelihoods.

Accounts from affected areas describe vehicles entering at speed, property damage, and the seizure of basic resources. Fatal incidents have also been reported, with residents killed during confrontations.

For many, remaining on the land has become increasingly difficult. Pressure builds through legal, economic, and physical channels.

A system, not incidents

Evidence suggests that settler violence is not random but operates within an organized framework supported by state institutions.

Figures from the Israeli rights group Yesh Din show that the vast majority of complaints related to settler violence are closed without charges.

Oversight of the police sits with extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Field reports from within the Israeli military describe coordination at times between soldiers and settler elements, or a lack of intervention during incidents.

Support has also taken administrative form. Dedicated units have been established to work with settler youth groups, alongside funding for equipment used in remote areas.

Political rhetoric has also drawn criticism. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly described violent settlers as “a handful of extremists.” The cumulative effect is a system that allows these dynamics to persist, operating with continuity rather than disruption.

Regional fault lines 

The developments have drawn responses from regional and international actors, grounded in legal frameworks.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its 2024 advisory opinion, found that Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem violate international law. Land confiscation and population transfer were identified as unlawful.

Land confiscation and the transfer of population are prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention and affirmed as unlawful in UN Security Council Resolution 2334.

Governments in Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye have described current policies as a form of annexation that undermines the basis for a political settlement.

For Jordan, the issue carries additional weight, touching on the foundations of its 1994 peace agreement with Israel.

Western responses have remained largely declarative. Opposition to formal annexation has not translated into a halt to settlement growth or infrastructure expansion.

The changes continue through administrative channels, each step building on the last. What began as a registry project now runs through land, law, and control across the occupied West Bank, carried forward through procedure and fixed on the ground.

Across legal files, hilltops, and emptying villages, the map is being redrawn without a formal declaration.

July 1, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Comments Off on The West Bank’s creeping annexation moves from maps to law

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