Mayrav Zonszen, an American-Israeli journalist and a prominent Israeli-Palestinian analyst at the International Crisis Group, argues that Israel must choose between withdrawing from the occupied territories or granting full rights to the Palestinians under its control.
In her article in the Washington Post, she noted that when Israel’s new president, Isaac Herzog, marked the first night of Christmas in December by lighting candles in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron – where some 850 Israeli settlers live under military protection among more than 200,000 Palestinians – Provided another humiliating reminder of Israel’s brutal occupation, he spoke of the need to condemn “all forms of hatred and violence” in a place where the systematic violence against Palestinians is blatant.
Zonszen alluded to what Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said when he was trying to mend Israel’s relations with Democrats in the United States and with European Union governments, in an effort to bolster Israel’s image as a liberal democracy playing a new role: “We will not immediately declare that anyone who does not agree with us is an anti-Semite and a hater.” For Israel, that’s not how you deal with a country’s foreign relations.”
She added that in the same month, after Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would no longer sell ice cream in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories – where 670,000 Israelis live illegally – Lapid described this move as “anti-Israel and hostile.” to the Jews.”
Zonszen said that presenting the settlement boycott as a boycott of Israel blurs the distinction between Israel’s internationally recognized 1948 borders and the land – and people – it has occupied since 1967.
The world must force Israel to choose: Either it commit to withdrawing its military and civilian presence from the West Bank to its pre-1967 borders, or it grants citizenship, full equality, and the right to vote to all those living under Israeli control, at least until a settlement is reached. real bargaining
She criticized Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Lapid’s coalition as continuing with the same policies of settlement expansion, home demolitions, threatening evictions, repression of Palestinians, and refusal to engage in even a semblance of a political process, and the new government doubled its power in confusing Israel and the West Bank.
According to this logic, even with Bennett who claims to “reduce” the conflict, the defense minister who seeks to strengthen the Palestinian economy, and the foreign minister who supports a two-state solution, Israeli policy is to preserve the West Bank, legalize settlements, and keep Palestinians under military rule, while claiming to improve their lives .
She added that Israel’s daily policies effectively implement one state from the river to the sea, where Jews enjoy freedoms that are denied to Palestinians.
She noted that the normalization of Israeli settlements and the erasure of the Green Line are not new, and that they have been occurring steadily since Israel began sending its citizens across the line after the 1967 war.
Zonszein concluded her article that international politics and discourse remain stuck despite their shift in Israel significantly away from the peace process.
She argued that the world should force Israel to choose: either it commits to withdrawing its military and civilian presence from the West Bank to its pre-1967 borders, or it grants citizenship, full equality and the right to vote to all those living under Israeli control, at least for the time being. A real negotiation.