In recent weeks, Israel has carried out its most violent attacks on Palestinians living in the West Bank since the Second Intifada, or uprising, that ended 20 years ago. Palestinians have also attacked Israeli settlers and residents of Israel proper. In the escalating violence, 170 Palestinians, including 26 children and 19 Israelis have been reported killed so far in 2023.
Earlier this year, Israel approved construction of more than 7,000 new housing units for settlers in the West Bank that will increase the Israeli population in the occupied territory beyond 500,000. These settlements are considered illegal under international law and undermine the “Two State Solution” that successive U.S. administrations have long claimed have claimed to support. According to the Israel-based group, Peace Now, the Israeli government is now pushing at an unprecedented pace towards the full annexation of the Palestinian West Bank.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Shelly Altman, chairperson of the New Haven, Connecticut chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, which has 400,000 members across the U.S. Here he discusses the latest actions of the most extreme right-wing government in Israeli history and what Jewish and other supporters of Palestine in the U.S. are doing to oppose Israeli government policy.
SHELLY ALTMAN: There are really three important things that I think have to be noted. The first is that Israelis elected this leadership. This leadership is not the result of a coup or anything like that. Israelis elected this leadership last November. The second is that here in the US, every time Israel does something that people are upset about, our government – whether it’s the administration or members of Congress or other people in leadership positions – express concern, they express deep concern, they say they’re deeply troubled. This week Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the settlement decision was an obstacle to the “horizon of hope,” but that we still have an “ironclad” relationship with Israel and we will have that forever.
This sets the stage for settlement expansion and for impunity in the face of the concern and the condemnation, nothing is ever done, here in the U.S., to present any consequences for Israel’s actions.
So, there’s a couple of things that happened. One is that the settlements seem to be positioned in a way to further fragment the land in the West Bank so that it’s harder and harder for Palestinians in the West Bank to get from one place to another.
And with regard to your question about a Palestinian state, however that played out, it makes it more and more impossible for that to happen, because the settlements are completely dividing up any territory that Palestinians would be able to have for a state or part of whatever political entity that was agreed to.
MELINDA TUHUS: Shelly Altman, what is Jewish Voice for Peace doing regarding all these ongoing crises?
SHELLY ALTMAN: JVP Action, which is the political side of Jewish Voice for Peace, had meetings with members of Congress or their aides earlier this month. The first thing you hear is Iran. There’s no interest in solving the problems between Israel and Palestine, with addressing the human rights violations, the land grabs, the home demolitions, any of that.
The interest is in manipulating the political situation in the Middle East so Iran does not get more power than it already has in the Middle East. And if making a deal with an egregious human rights violator like Saudi Arabia, that’s okay to make Israel happy, to sell arms and to shut down Iran.
There are several pieces of legislation that we spoke to our members of Congress and their aides about. One of them is HR 3103, which is a Betty McCollum-sponsored bill, to assure that any aid we give to Israel is not used for abuse of children through arrests and detentions. The second piece is to not allow those funds to be used for home demolitions or destruction of homes of Palestinian families. And the third is to not allow those funds to be used for annexation.
You know, the chances of that legislation passing and being signed by the president are zero, at least in this Congress. But the intention is to build up a base of support for consequences and for promoting human rights and for making people aware in our government about what’s going on and how we need to take steps to say “No, this is not what we are and this is not what we’re going to support.”
One other thing I do want to say, and this gets back to a little impunity. You’ve probably heard of the Israeli finance minister, whose name is Bezalel Smotrich. He’s the finance minister but he’s also in charge of civil administration in the West Bank. He’s the man who called for the town of Huwara to be erased from the map when settlers invaded it earlier this year, in March.
He’s refused to call the settler pogroms in the Palestinian towns “terror.” He’s argued that basically they’re brothers and are fighting a common enemy – namely Palestine. And basically, Israel has just changed how they do settlements. It used to be that the power over the settlements was with the Israeli military, because it’s a military occupation. But that’s now been changed so that the power is basically controlled by the civilian administration, which is Smotrich, whose stated intent is to remove all Palestinians.
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