Our Wednesday News Analysis | Editorial | Don't Look Away: Israel's Annexation of the West Bank Is Already Here

A Palestinian flag flies in the village of Beita south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank near an Israeli watchtower erected in the Eviatar settlement outpost, last year.Credit: AFP/JAAFAR ASHTIYEH

"The fact that the Knesset has not yet approved these bills has not prevented the coalition from pouring millions of shekels into the settlements in various ways. Such steps are no longer done in secret, but proudly and openly."

At a time when the Israeli right has adopted the "Trump vision" of transferring two million Gazans for the sake of creating an American Riviera and the Israel Defense Forces is preparing the ground there for a supposedly temporary extended stay on which the infrastructure of renewed settlement is being established, annexation of the West Bank is no longer moving at a snail's pace. It has risen to its feet and is proceeding apace.

The annexation is already here. By the time it is formally declared, it will already be too late to stop it – the process will have been completed.

That is the modus operandi of the settlers and the government—to do everything short of a formal declaration, knowing that no one is paying attention or caring.

What is happening on the ground is clear to anyone who travels in the West Bank and even more apparent to those following Bezalel Smotrich and other coalition members' activities.

At the heart of the revolution, now in full swing, is:

• A drastic increase in the number of building permits in settlements.
• The transfer of West Bank administration from the army to the settlers and their supporters.
• The designation of state land is at a dizzying pace.
• The draconian enforcement against illegal Palestinian construction.

Many of these take place under the radar because, in theory, they involve bureaucratic steps – the establishment of the settlement administration, the transfer of authority out of the army's Civil Administration, passage of a law that will make it easier for Jews to buy West Bank land and steps aimed at strengthening the settlements economically.

The latter is being accomplished, among other things, by a law that will entitle the settlements to municipal tax revenues from industrial and commercial districts inside Israel proper, and one that will deem the South Hebron Hill settlements a part of the Negev. All are aimed at the single goal of ensuring the settlements get more government money...

Read more: Editorial | Don't Look Away: Israel's Annexation of the West Bank Is Already Here

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YOM HASHOAH: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AGAINST GAZA WAR SAY ‘NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE’

Source: Middle East Eye
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yom-hashoah-holocaust-survivors-against-gaza-war-say-never-again-anyone

By Simon Hooper
Published April 23, 2025

Survivors and descendants say official commemoration ignores outrage and accusations of genocide levelled at Israel over deaths of more than 51,000 Palestinians

Agnes Kory, who was born in Hungary in 1944, said 'what was done to us as Jews should not be repeated against anybody else' (Simon Hooper/MEE)

“The inclination to avert our eyes is strong, as what is happening is unbearable, but our Jewish values compel us to stand up and to speak out,” they wrote.

The letter was described by the Financial Times as “the first public show of opposition” to Israel’s war by members of the board.

… the letter was welcome, but questioned why it had taken the signatories “a year and a half of mass murder” to speak out.

It doesn’t matter what they say and where they write it. Netanyahu is not going to take the slightest bit of notice.”

Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors in the UK have said they feel a burden of responsibility to speak out against Israel’s continuing war in Gaza as Jewish communities mark Yom HaShoah - Israel’s day of remembrance for the six million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany.

This year’s Yom HaShoah, which begins on Wednesday evening, coincides with the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe in 1945, as well as the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by British forces.

Thousands of people, including several survivors and refugees who escaped to the UK from Nazi-occupied Europe, are set to attend an event in London later on Wednesday at the site of a proposed new Holocaust memorial close to the Houses of Parliament.

Organisers have said the event may be “the last major anniversary where survivors and refugees are present in meaningful numbers”.

But other survivors and descendants critical of the event have told Middle East Eye they object to how the memory of the Holocaust has been framed by the Israeli government and its supporters in the UK to justify the war in Gaza and say they fear Israel’s actions are inflaming antisemitism...

Read more: Yom HaShoah: Holocaust survivors against Gaza war say ‘never again for anyone’
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ISRAEL CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF RELIGION IN JERUSALEM

Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2597988

By Osama Al-Sharif
Published April 22, 2025

Israel prevented thousands of Christian pilgrims from participating in Saturday’s “Holy Fire” celebrations (File/AFP)

"Jewish extremists openly say they want to make Jerusalem a 100 percent Jewish city, with no religious rights for Muslims or Christians.

They are uprooting Palestinian Christians from their ancestral lands
and imposing a dark and sinister reality on the Holy City and beyond.

The international community bears responsibility
for protecting the multireligious character of Jerusalem."

Israel prevented thousands of Christian pilgrims from participating in Saturday’s “Holy Fire” celebrations in the occupied Old City of Jerusalem. Of the West Bank’s 50,000 Palestinian Christians, only about 6,000 permits were issued by Israel. And on Saturday, many foreign pilgrims were prevented from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Christianity’s holiest site. Israeli authorities denied entry to the Vatican Ambassador to Palestine Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana, an act that violates diplomatic protocols and international conventions.

Among the many misconceptions about the Palestine saga is that Palestinians are Muslims and that the historical struggle over the Holy Land is between Jews and Muslims. That is a gross misapprehension of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and independence, as well as a failure to understand the diverse social and cultural tapestry of the Palestinian people.

Most Palestinians are indeed Sunni Arabs — they constituted about 85 percent of historical Palestine in 1948, with Christians making up about 10 percent. Despite being a minority, Christians of all denominations were integral to Palestine’s political, economic, and cultural life.

As for the Jews who lived in Palestine and were considered Palestinian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, it is estimated that, by the early 1900s, there were about 25,000 Jews in the Holy Land, about 4 percent of the total population.

Today, Palestinian Christians in the West Bank represent no more than 1.5 percent of the population, or 50,000, while another 1,100 were living in Gaza before the start of the ongoing Israeli war on the enclave.

Until the creation of Israel, Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted peacefully within the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. But the 1948 and 1967 wars drove many Palestinian Christians out of historical Palestine. The Christians now living in Israel — and not all are Palestinian — make up 1.8 percent of its population...

Read more: Israel cannot be trusted to protect freedom of religion in Jerusalem