A screenshot of the pogrom of the Palestinian village of Jit. Israel is prosecuting four settlers
In an effort to deflect from wider state crimes, Israeli police have detained four settlers accused of taking part in a deadly rampage in the Palestinian village of Jit.
They are under investigation for “terrorism against Palestinians”—as if the “legal” military and police were not wholly involved in such acts.
A mob of Israeli settlers broke into Jit on 15 August, set fire to cars, destroyed homes and shot dead Palestinian Rashid Mahmoud Abdul Qader Al-Sadeh. This pogrom was not the act of rogue individuals. It flows directly from the Israeli state’s policy of arming and supporting settler violence.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said, “This crime is part of a broader range of violence fuelled by the ongoing incitement campaign by Israeli ministers. Settler violence is inseparable from Israel’s broader policy to establish full sovereignty over the West Bank and its plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians.”
The specifics of the attack on Jit underline the collusion that boosts settler killings. Around an hour after the settlers raided the village, the Israel military arrived and began dispersing Palestinian villagers. This stopped them extinguishing the fires engulfing their homes and vehicles.
The Israeli troops then fired live bullets and tear gas canisters into the air but did nothing to halt the settlers’ rampage.
The PCHR said, “They facilitated and secured the settlers’ withdrawal from the village.” It pointed to “repeated announcements of arming settlers and forming armed militias with the backing of Israeli government ministers”.
US-based Jewish Voice for Peace said that the Israeli government has transferred over 150,000 guns and hundreds of other weapons to Israeli settlers since 7 October. It added, “During this period, the Israeli ministry of national security has also significantly relaxed gun licensing requirements, approving permits for an additional 100,000 firearms.”.
Between 7 October 2023 and 12 August 2024, the United Nations humanitarian office recorded around 1,250 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians. Around 120 of these led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries.
And Israel has arrested more than 10,000 Palestinians from the West Bank since last October.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem—areas of historic Palestine—in its 1967 war. It has maintained its rule as part of the longest military occupation in modern history.
For over 55 years, the Israeli military occupation actively pursued the “de-Palestinianisation” of the Occupied Territories. It is a continuation and development of the expulsion and elimination of the Nakba of 1948.
The Oslo “peace accords” in 1993 prohibited the establishment of new settlements. They were supposed to see the emergence of some form of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank.
At the time there were approximately 110,000 settlers in the West Bank and around 140,000 in East Jerusalem. Instead of freezing these numbers, the sell-out surrender deal agreed by some Palestinian elites saw a massive acceleration of settlement building.
Today there are about 480,000 settlers in the West Bank, and 240,000 settlers in East Jerusalem. Taken together, that’s a three-fold increase since the “peace deal”.
Israel also had settlements in Gaza before a 2005 withdrawal. The present assault on Gaza could pave the way for the return of such settlements—with the most fanatical Zionists already wanting to grab land.
Numerous United Nations resolutions have told Israel to abandon the land it seized in 1967. Such words do not have a feather’s weight. Western imperialism allows Israel, its fortress state in the Middle East, to continue the occupation.
In July this year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”.
But Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu said his country will not relinquish control over the occupied West Bank. “It’s part of our homeland. We intend to stay there,” he said of the occupied Palestinian land.
Israeli settler-colonialism, backed by Britain, the US and others, is the fundamental source and agency of oppression. The moves against a handful of settlers are not just inadequate. They are a systematic camouflage of the murderous and state-orchestrated brutality.
Sat 31 August: Divest for Palestine day of action at councils. Details at tinyurl.com/Divest3108
Sat 7 Sept, 12 noon, central London: National demonstration, End the Genocide, Stop Arming Israel, No Middle East War, No to Islamophobia.
Sat 21 Sept, 12 noon, Liverpool: Protest at the Labour Party conference
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