October 7th. raises controversy about priorities between security requirements and settlement in Israel

By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The national Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that under the title ‘The Collapse of Concepts, the Path to Failure on Oct. 7, 2023,’ the Berl Katznelson Foundation in cooperation with the Molad - The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy in Israel are independent Israeli organizations recently published a document addressing the relationship between security and settlement in which they reviewed the policy of the Israeli Occupying State (IOS) that gave security of the settlements and settlers in the West Bank a higher value than the security of the State in the face of future potentials that do not exclude entering into a war on any of the combat fronts.
At this level, the document showed the mistakes that the political and military leadership of the occupying state made. On the morning of October 7, according to that document, the military force deployed by the Israeli army on the border with the Gaza Strip consisted of only two military battalions, while the force deployed by the army at the same time in the areas of the West Bank was about 32 battalions. It a clear indication that the settlements in the West Bank were gaining an advantage in the national security calculations of the occupying State, in addition to being draining the bulk of the manpower in the army, what happened on Oct. 7 came as the price for Israel’s choice to prefer the settlements over security, which raised questions about the necessity of choosing either “settlements”´-or-“security”.
To get the picture clearer, the document goes back to years ago, when the Front was not calm after ‘OS’ brutal aggression against the Gaza Strip in 2014, and no useful lessons were drawn from it. In June 2016, a senior official in the Israeli Ministry of Amy summarized that “the army is-limit-ed in its ability to conduct training and improve efficiency among its soldiers and officers, because a large part of its forces are deployed in the areas of Judea and Samaria i.e. the West Bank, and are engaged in tasks that are closer to police missions.” In addition, after the ‘OS’ completed in Dec. 2021 the construction of the electric wall surrounding the Gaza Strip, about 65 km long and at a total cost amounting to NIS 3.5, as well as the occupying army collected all the weapons that previously distributed to the residents of the towns of the “Gaza envelope” for self-defense.
After that, the document’s authors move on to the question: Why was there a need to allocate 16 times more military forces for protection in the West Bank than were allocated to protect the border with the Gaza Strip? The answer reflects the priorities of the ‘OS’ and its successive governments, which over the years of occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, established a settlement project “in the heart of a hostile region” with all the significant security resources this requires, after the occupying state’s borders with the West Bank became 5 times longer than it was before 1967.
Throughout those years of building the colonial settlement project in the West Bank, the ‘OS’ was monitoring the enormous security and economic resources required to proceed with its project, a project that had nothing to do with security reasons as much as it was -dir-ected, especially after the Likud’s rise to power in 1977, by expansionist motives based on exclusion of the Palestinians, and with preventing the return of lands in any political agreement.
It is true in this context that former Israeli PM Rabin tried to distinguish between political settlement and security settlement in his attempt to pass the Oslo Accords with the Palestinian side. However, such a distinction was forgotten after Rabin’s assassination in 1995, as the ideological right once returned to power. With the exception of a short period, the settlement project continued, which ultimately, after the rise of fascism to power in Israel, was based on a settlement plan that goes hand in hand with a plan for ethnic cleansing, in which the ‘OS’ needs to allocate large resources of manpower and military resources to move forward on the way to achieve it, with all that this requires providing security for the settlements, outposts, and so-called pastoral farms, which in recent years have begun to spread like mushrooms´-or-cancer throughout the West Bank.
Accordingly, on the day following the end of the brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, society in the ‘OS’ will face questions that need answers regarding the priorities between security and the settlements, especially after it became clear that the military formations of the occupying army spent most of the time on police missions in the West Bank areas and didn’t have enough time for preparatory training for future war scenarios. In addition, the violence of the settlers and their terrorist organizations, including the ‘Hill Youth,’ ‘Price Pay,’ and other Jewish terrorist organizations disrupts the role assigned to the occupation army in providing protection for the settlement project, disperses its efforts in this -dir-ection, and drains its energies.
In the settlement neighborhood, which the settlers established in the heart of the city of Hebron, for example, but not-limit-ed to, about 800 ‘permanent settlers’ and about 250 ‘religious school students’ “yishivot” hav been living there, and to protect them among 33,000 Palestinians, the occupation army maintains in the city a full infantry battalion and two companies of Border Guard police officers, meaning a total of approximately 600 security personnel.
As for the settlement activities carried out by the occupying state, Jerusalem and its surroundings are still the focus of these activities, as the occupation government exploits its brutal and destructive war on the Gaza Strip to impose more facts in the city in favor of the settlers, after shelving what it called the “5 years plan to develop East Jerusalem”. For the years 2024-2028 that was ratified last August and was swallowed up by budget cuts for the war on the Gaza Strip.
Last week, the Occupation Authorities announced their approval of a project to build 1,792 housing units in a new settlement neighborhood, half of which is located on the lands of the town of Sur Baher in East Jerusalem, while the second half is located in West Jerusalem, on about 186 dunams. The project is located between the current Har Homa settlement and the Givat Hamatos settlement. This settlement project has serious repercussions on the future of the city, which increases the risks of isolating it from the southern West Bank and deepens the disparities therein in light of the well-known position on residential development of the Palestinians, who constitute approximately 40% of the Jerusalemites.
At the same time, the occupation municipality in Jerusalem approved one of the largest settlement projects in the south of the city of Jerusalem to eliminate the dividing line on both sides of the Green Line, in light of the decision to build 12 towers of different heights in two compounds, overlapping a new settlement neighborhood that includes the “Kiryat Heovel” settlement on the Al-Walaja lands. Battir, south of Jerusalem, and Beit Zayed. In the details of this project, it will include 1,200 settlement units on an area of about 45 dunums.

Two weeks ago, the ‘Kol Ha ir newspaper’ published a report on a group of settlement projects that include plans to connect the entire southern area of the eastern and western parts of Jerusalem with the ‘Begin’ bypass road connected to Route 443 Jerusalem - Tel Aviv via St. No. 1, with a series of towers consisting of 45 floors. With 2,000 settlement units - 250 assisted living units, 300 hotel rooms and dozens of acres for employment, commerce and public areas.
According to the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee, which decided last Monday to submit the plan for objections, this project will be the largest in the city of Jerusalem on an area of about 215 dunums. The District Committee said that after the discussion that took place regarding the plan on October 9, 2023, the committee decided to raise a number of towers in the northern part of the planned area from a height of 40 floors to 45.
In Jerusalem, the occupation authorities announced the confiscation of 501 dunams of citizens’ lands in Jaba’ in the Jerusalem Governorate, under the pretext that they are ‘State Lands’, and the targeted lands located in Basin No. 3, a natural area of Wadi al-Nimr, and Basin No. 4, a natural area of Erqan al-Jahsh, on the lands of the village of Jaba. Through this, the occupation authorities are trying to create geographical continuity between the “Adam” and “Geva Binyamin” settlements, given that these targeted lands are located in the space separating the two settlements, which will contribute in the future to the expansion of settlements on citizens’ lands.

On the other hand, the media reported that the US State Department decided last Tuesday to restrict visas for people believed to be involved in undermining peace, security,´-or-stability in the West Bank, and that the decision targets those who are believed to have committed acts of violence and obstructed civilians’ access to basic services and basic necessities to mitigate the impact of the news on the Israeli government, added that the United States will continue to involve the Israeli leadership and the Palestinian Authority in dealing with the violence in the West Bank, and that they both bear the responsibility of supporting stability.
It should be noted here that we are not talking about crimes committed by the settlers and their terrorist organizations, such as the “Hill Youth” and “Price Tag” terrorist thugs and their political, field, and spiritual leaders, such as Smotrich, Ben Gvir, Moshe Neeman, Yossi Dagan, Rabbi Dov Lior, and other rabbis of religious Zionism, which are crimes that claimed the lives of large number of Palestinian citizens’ property, homes, and facilities were burned and destroyed, and their farms were affected to the point of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, insofar as there were acts of violence that both the occupation government and the Palestinian Authority must deal with and subject to accountability, which casts a shadow of doubt about the credibility of the American Administration.

List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
• Carrying out a policy of silent forced displacement against Jerusalemites by escalating the demolition of their homes, by activating dozens of demolition orders for their facilities, where the occupation police demolished an apartment in a residential building in the town of Sur Baher belonging to citizen Jihad Attoun under the pretext of building without a permit.
• Demolishing a home of Mamoon Amin Awad by his own in the same town under the same pretext. Within the context of collective punishment, Israeli PM Netanyahu in a meeting held with a number of ministers and officials last week, he instructed to take swift punitive measures against the people of Sur Baher, which included closing the Um Tuba Neighborhood with cement cubes to reduce movement in and out of the two neighborhoods amid continuous inspection procedures at only one entrance for in and out.
• Notifying order to demolish a residential building and placed posters on it notifying of their intention to be demolished in the Al-Sawana Neighborhood under the pretext of building without a permit.
• Demolishing a house of a citizen in the town of Beit Hanina, consisting of 3 apartments, without allowing its residents to remove any piece of furniture and part of the house of Al-Maqdisi Haitham Jalajel in the Al-Bustan Neighborhood.
• demolished a number of facilities in the Hizma town, erected barriers at their entrances and impeded the passage of citizens, noting that this year witnessed an unprecedented escalation in the demolition of homes in Jerusalem, as the number of homes and facilities that the occupation authorities demolished´-or-forced residents to demolish reached about 215 homes since the beginning of this year, the highest toll in several years.
Hebron:
• Preventing citizens Hussein Radi Al-Nawajaa and Khader Musaaf from plowing their lands in several areas in Musafer Yatta, south of Hebron. Threatening citizens in the village of Wadi Ajhish and in Susya, Ghziyuh from going out to plow their lands.
• Destroying a drinking water network that supplied 3 residential communities, “Asfi, Mughair al-Ubaid, and al-Tuba,” meaning that a large number of people in those areas were deprived of drinking water.
• Building a settlement road on citizens’ lands in the village of Birin, in the Wadi al-Malaki and Ain al-Shunar areas, more than 3 km long with the aim of linking the “Bnei Hefer” settlement, established on citizens’ lands to the east, with the new settlement outpost that was established last year on village lands.
• Demolishing a house sheltering 30 individuals, they also demolished a house inhabited 25 individuals.
Bethlehem:
• Seizing 12 dunums of agricultural land south of Bethlehem, planted them with forest trees in the Nahla area near the village of Wadi Rahal, located between the “Efrat” and the “Kivat Eitam” settlements, belonging to the citizen Moh’d Issa Al-Harimi. Noting that the settlers seized about 300 dunums in the same location a week ago.
• setting up a “caravan” in the village of Husan, on land located in the “Wadi Abu Al-Hamra” area, west of the village, near the entrance to the village of Wadi Fukin, belonging to citizen Nizar Mansour Hamamra.
• Demolishing 6 agricultural rooms in the town of Al-Ubaidiya, east of Bethlehem, in the “Rahwa” area, east of the town adjacent to the “Boaz” settlement, under the pretext of not having a permit.
• Seizing 10 agricultural dunums from the town of Nahalin in Basin No. 3 in the area. Dhahr Al-Matrasiyah, and 4 in the Abu Kuliba area, southwest of Nahalin, adjacent to the “Beit Ayin” settlement.
• Uprooting dozens of olive trees in the town in Wadi Al-Jamaliya in the Ein Fares area southwest of the town, and demolished an inhabited house in the Um Rukba area south of the town of Al-Khader. It consists of two floors under the pretext of not having a license, and built a settlement road extending from a settlement outpost to the Um Rukba area.
Ramallah:
• Deciding to seize about 2.8 dunums of land in Silwad, Basins no.18 and 20 for military purposes, according to allegations, at a time when settlers stormed the Al-Muhallal area in the village of Deir Qadis and fired bullets at citizens, wounding 2 children ‘12 and 14 years old’ with bullets.
• Attacking the village of Um Safa and began smashing vehicles, smashing glass, and vandalizing them. They also punctured vehicle tires, stole registration plates, and attacked a vehicle fixing garage in the western area of the village.
Salfeet:
• Torching the house of the citizen Shaher Mar’i, and vehicle, and attacked several houses in the “Al-Ras” area in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, while the occupation soldiers fired live bullets at the citizens, a number of farmers suffered bruises during settlers attack on them in the village of Yasuf, assaulted the citizen, Amer Abdullah Youssef, while he was on his land in the “Wadi Al-Ain” area, south of the town of Deir Ballut, and injured him with bruises, also attacked shepherds in the “Al-Ein” area, south of the town, and forced them to leave at gunpoint.
• Killing Ahmed Assi, 38, and 3 others were injured by live bullets, during a terrorist attack carried out by settlers on the lands of the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, in the Al-Ras area.
• Bulldozing large areas of the lands of the citizens of the town of Kafl Haris, and destroyed dozens of old olive trees from the entrance.
Nablus:
• Bulldozing lands in the village of Beit Dajan in the Marah Al-Arayes area, planted with grains by farmers east of the village, and destroyed more than 150 olive trees and dozens of dunums planted with wheat and barley, while settlers fired live bullets at the citizens who came to defend the lands, and the occupation authorities decided to seize about 5 dunums of Huwwara land for “military purposes.
• Attacking the house of Yasser Kat in the Madama village, throwing stones at him and burning his vehicle.
• Destroying an electricity network on Columns St. in Sebastia, attacked Jabr Abd al-Razzaq Jabr Aqraa from the Qablan town near by settlers, which led to the windshield being broken and the driver sustaining some injuries
Tulkarm:
• Placing ‘caravans’ on Mount Ras Abu Jamra, east of Tulkarm, divided it into sections, and then connecting the area with electricity network. The land owners said, “They were surprised by the occupation’s vehicles as they placed 3 mobile caravans, ready for habitation, on the mountain. This work came after the occupation began 10 days ago bulldozing the land and leveling it without prior warning and without knowing the reasons, prevented the owners from reaching his land, despite he has the identification papers and the title deed that prove their ownership of the land. Knowing the area of the land is 32 dunums and is owned by the Dridi family from the Beit Lied town, and is located on the eastern side of the Inab settlement, which was established on the lands of the Ramin, Beit Lied, and Kafr Al-Labad villages and towns, east of Tulkarm.
Jorfan Valley:
• Storming a Bedouin community in Wadi al-Qalt, west of Jericho, raided 5 homes belonging to the Nader Ka’bna family, interrogated the citizens, and terrorized children and women, seized an agricultural tractor and a water tank in the Um al-Abr area, in the northern Jordan Valley under the pretext of being located in a nature reserve area.
• Attacking citizens in Khallet Ghazal area in the northern Jordan Valley, bulldozed about 5 dunums and planted them with wheat, others destroyed lands planted with citrus and olive trees in an area “A” on the border of Area C, near Al-Auja.

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