“Stick, stones, matches, gasoline.”
The technology of ethnic cleansing.
What follows is an updated version of a report published two days ago at West Bank Alerts, a newsletter devoted to reporting on the ethnic cleansing of Occupied Palestine. These Alerts are based on information sent to me from friends and sources cultivated during my travels in the West Bank. The Floutist publishes these on an occasional basis. I encourage readers to subscribe to West Bank Alerts, via the link above, to receive all of these updates in your inbox. These are freely available; paid subscriptions are, of course, welcome.
—C. M.
7 NOVEMBER—Settler violence continues to intensify throughout the West Bank. Let us continue to bear witness to the suffering of our Palestinian brothers and sisters and to the crimes of the “Jewish state.” Join me in this purpose.
On Saturday morning, 1 November, I received a text from my friend and contact Adnan al–Abayat, who lives in the village of Kisan, 15 kilometers southeast of Bethlehem. He sent two videos that were then circulating in Palestinian social media. What you see in them is further evidence of the ethnic cleansing under way, a project carried out largely by settlers but with the blessing and protection of the Zionist regime in Tel Aviv.
In the first video you see cars and equipment set on fire in the village of Kafr Qaddum in the northern West Bank governorate of Qalqiya. Arson—a form of economic warfare—is routinely used to terrorize Palestinians and destroy olive groves, vehicles, businesses, and homes.
Watch the video on The Floutist.
The following video shows settlers entering an enclosed sheep pen and killing lambs. This attack occurred on the outskirts of the village of as–Samu in the South Hebron Hills. The slaughter of Palestinian animals—sheep, goats, dogs, chickens, donkeys—is an attack on the economic and food security of Palestinian families and communities. This incident, which has been reported in Haaretz and The Times of Israel, was unusual only in that the brutality and depravity of the act was caught on a security camera.
Watch the video on The Floutist.
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Less than twenty-four hours after publishing these videos in West Bank Alerts—which is devoted to reporting on the ethnic cleansing under way in the West Bank—settlers set fire to olive trees in the agricultural plain of Turmus Ayya. The fire can be seen spreading quickly from left to right in the 48–second video below. Many of these trees are centuries old. Residents of Turmus Ayya, a small town 22 kilometers northeast of Ramallah, depend upon the olive harvest for their food and economic security.
Watch the video on The Floutist.
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In Adnan’s text of 1 November that accompanied the videos, he wrote:
I am witnessing horrific and tragic scenes of destruction in the West Bank and Palestinian villages. I see that settler attacks have spiraled out of control. Settlers have become organized gangs. Some of these attacks, which have occurred in the last two days, have ranged from burning property to storming sheepfolds and killing the animals without mercy. Look at the extent of our suffering—the injustice and oppression—and I am writing to you to tell you that there is a genocide and forced displacement taking place in the West Bank.
The erasure of Palestinians from the West Bank is not a high-tech military operation. Fighter jets aren’t dropping 2,000 pound bombs. Drones aren’t shooting civilians. Not yet.
Instead, it’s being conducted by Jewish Israeli civilians with sticks and stones, matches and gasoline, Molotov cocktails, all-terrain vehicles, and military-issue assault rifles distributed to settlers—courtesy of the United States.
This diabolic project is coordinated on every level with Zionist Occupation Forces who protect the settlers. It includes the mass arrest and imprisonment of Palestinians who are starved, tortured, and raped. It takes the form of strategic and systematic terrorism: the destruction of olive groves, wheat fields, and greenhouses, the slaughter of animals, the poisoning of wells, the beating of old people while they harvest olives, the random shooting of Palestinians of all ages. Areas of the West Bank are being turned into piles of rubble not unlike Gaza as backhoes and bulldozers demolish houses, community centers, and infrastructure.
Israel is driving Palestinians from rural communities and villages at an ever increasing pace as it steals more and more land. This won’t stop until Israel is forced to stop.
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How, you might wonder, can Israel be stopped?
First and foremost: Stopping Israel will require stopping U.S. support for Israel. It is down to us—those of us who live in the U.S. The Zionist stranglehold on our government must be broken. We must demand that our representatives quit accepting money from the Israel lobbies. Whatever we can do we must do as a matter of dignity and to preserve our own humanity—however small the effort may seem.
We do not have to—and we must not—remain passive spectators to the crimes of the Israel-U.S. empire.
This is an updated version of a report published at West Bank Alerts. If you want to receive these Alerts in your inbox, please subscribe to West Band Alerts.
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