Radicals strengthen themselves with speeches against the opponent; Tension in the region is set to rise through 2023, which is already the deadliest start to a year since 2000.
The tension in west bank in between Israel It is Palestine gets a new episode every year, as both sides dispute the dominance of that region. In 2023, from January to March 22, 87 Palestinians have already died in clashes, while on the Israeli side there were 13 dead. In addition, a citizen of Ukrainian nationality also died. This is the deadliest start to a year since 2000, with an average of more than one fatality a day, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health count. The confrontation between the parties is far from over, even more so now with the beginning of Ramadan – the holy month of Muslims in which tensions tend to increase -, which began on March 22nd and runs until April 21st, and with two sides extremists. On the side of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allied with far-right parties, and on the Palestinian side, Cova dos Leões, a militant group that emerged last year and fights against the Israeli occupation. The United Nations Organization asked this Wednesday, 22, that Israelis and Palestinians reduce tensions and avoid any provocation in Ramadan, whose celebration coincides this year with Easter. “I call on all parties to avoid unilateral acts that increase tensions. This should be a safe and peaceful period of reflection and religious celebration for all,” said Tor Wennesland, UN envoy for the Middle East, before the United Nations Security Council. He said he was “very uneasy about the escalating cycle of violence that threatens to plunge Palestinians and Israelis further into this deadly crisis, while further eroding hope for a political solution.”
In an interview with Portal Jovem Pan, PhD in international relations and project coordinator at Instituto Brasil-Israel Karina Calandrin explains the reasons behind the worsening relations. “Extreme right parties in Israel have a strong anti-Arab discourse and they see them as terrorists who are not capable of dialogue. The situation should get worse because settlements in the West Bank and the occupation tend to expand, they even talk about annexation”. Proving what the expert said, on Tuesday, the 22nd, the Israeli parliament amended a 2005 law and paved the way for the return of Jewish settlers to four settlements in the West Bank, a measure condemned by the Palestinian Authority and the European Union. The decision was announced three days after IIsrael and Palestine renewed their joint commitment to reduce tensions and end unilateral measures before the start of religious celebrations. The repeal of certain clauses in a previous evacuation law will allow Jewish residents to return to the place they were forced to vacate under the condition of approval by the Israeli military. thePalestinian authority quickly denounced the move. “This is a condemned and rejected decision and is contrary to all resolutions of international legitimacy,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Since the 1967 war, Israel has established about 140 settlements on land that Palestinians see as the center of a future state. In addition to the authorized places, groups of settlers built dozens of outposts without government permission. Most world powers regard settlements built in territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war as illegal under international law, and their expansion as an obstacle to peace. Calandrin points out that Israel does not care what the international community and United Nations (UN) think and “will probably want to pass laws that reduce the rights of Israeli Arab citizens”, which will contribute to the increase of tension in the West Bank, says the expert. Samuel Feldberg, a political scientist and researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center, agrees. He points out that this alliance that Netanyahu made to return to power at the end of 2022 is perhaps the greatest tragedy that Israeli society is experiencing. “They allied themselves with the extreme right and this is reflected in the policies they adopt in relation to the administration of territories in the West Bank”. He also points out that the perception that Israel is divided encourages a more radical position by Palestinians.
What is the West Bank?
As Calandrin explains, the West Bank is a territory that Israel considers part of its State, but the UN and other countries, like Brazil, classify it as part of a future Palestinian State. However, since 1967, when there was the Six-Day War, a conflict between Israelis and Arabs, Israel began to occupy the territory after it won the war and built cities, however, it did not annex them, which makes them not part of the its territory. The Palestinians, in turn, claim this area. Since 1995, when agreements were signed, the West Bank has been divided as follows:
- Side A: Total Palestinian control, where the largest cities are, such as Jerico and Bethlehem. Where most people live;
- Side B: There is a presence of Palestinians, but it has joint administration. Every part of the region is made by Palestinians, but security is by Israelis – a factor that causes the problem, because there is the military presence of Israel on one side and the Palestinian population on the other;
- C side: Largest territorial part and total domain of Israel. An estimated one million Israelis live in the West Bank. People like annexation because it would be difficult to remove all citizens from there.
Feldberg points out that there are two other reasons why Israel wants the West Bank. The first is that all of Judaism’s holy sites are located in the region. The second is a question of security, since the place is surrounded by a mountain range that controls the strategic point of view of the coast of Israel, so, if there is a society hostile to them controlling that territory, Israeli security is ” extremely compromised”. The issue in the West Bank is quite delicate, even more so when one takes into account that the Palestinian authority Mahmoud Zeidan is weakened and there has been no election in the region since 2006, when the last ones took place and there was a coup d’état by Fatah – the party that commands the territory – by not accepting the victory of Hamas.
Israeli security forces patrol as Palestinians gather outside the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on March 22, 2023, ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan │AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
This weakness is used in Netanyahu’s speech, who takes advantage of the situation to say that the Palestinian authority is weak and Hamas – a group that emerged as a political party and later came to represent those who did not feel represented by Zeidan – is a terrorist, because they use violence to fight for their rights. “That’s the big problem when extremists take over the agenda. We have a right-wing government with very incisive proposals for action, and on the Palestinian side, a weak leadership that is little known by the population, which opens up room for action by these more radical groups”, explains Feldberg. The researcher says that ‘“we live in a moment in which the Palestinian authority has been deteriorating, the leader is already an old person and there is no definition of a successor, in addition to being considered extremely corrupt”. He even mentions the emergence of the Cova dos Leões group, which has been fighting with the Israelis. These circumstances, along with “young people’s lack of expectations lead them to look for alternatives, and in this case, violence. The group has attracted young people who want to use force against Israel,” he adds. However, for him, “it is yet another organization that emerges, it will have its area of activity, period of expression, but it will probably not lead to any significant change in the balance of power’.
Calandrin says that the situation in the West Bank is a vicious circle, because having two extremes, one feeds the other. “It is a cycle that feeds on itself. The discourse that guided Netanyahu’s campaign is that of security. Every time violence increases in the West Bank and Gaza, he uses this speech to defend his worldview and strengthen himself, to say that you can’t talk to Palestinians because they are terrorists and that only he can keep Israelis safe.” . On the other hand, the Palestinians “manage, from the violence of Israel, to inflict and unite a strong anti-Israel discourse and gain legitimacy in the movement”, he says. The expert also says that “in the war of narratives, Israel loses every time, because whenever a missile is launched by Palestine, even if it is contained by the anti-missile system, the country retaliates, and when that happens, hundreds of Palestinians die. there appears [na mídia] that Palestine launched a thousand missiles and no one died, but Israel retaliated, and killed several”. Calandrin ends by saying that this situation makes it difficult to think of a solution for the West Bank.
Source: Jovempan
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