| Dossier: Israel – DIESES DOSSIER AUF DEUTSCH LESEN – Why I Am a Zionist – Did Israel violate international law in Gaza? – UNRWA: An Arsonist Playing Firefighter – Must We Condemn the Jewish Settlements in the West Bank? – Anti-Semitism in Islam – Anti-Semitism from the Left – Is solidarity with Israel unchristian? – My Statement on October 7 – Why I’m doing this |
An accusation against Israel is circulating in the Western media that goes something like this: “By expanding settlements in the occupied territories, Israel is making a Palestinian state impossible. It is thus doing exactly what it accuses its enemies of doing: They don’t want a Jewish state—Israel doesn’t want a Palestinian state. This shows that Israel isn’t a bit better.”
Is there any truth to this?
First, let’s clarify: What is meant by “occupied territories”?
The “occupied territories”: a misleading term
For Israel’s enemies, all of Israel is “occupied territory,” including, of course, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank. So when they demand that Israel withdraw from the “occupied territories,” what they really mean is: Israel should cease to exist. All Jews in the country should either be expelled or killed. It’s just like Hitler all over again.
More moderate observers understand the “occupied territories” to mean those areas that Israel conquered in 1967 and continues to control to this day. By this they mean Gaza, the Golan Heights—which Syria claims—as well as East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
But which territories does Israel actually occupy?
In the West Bank, there are areas that no Jew is allowed to enter without risking his life: the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. These areas are also considered to be occupied by Israel. But why, exactly? Is an area considered occupied if you’re not even allowed to set foot in it?
Gaza is also considered occupied. How so? No Israeli soldiers were stationed there from 2005 until the 2023 Gaza War. To this day, not a single Jew lives there anymore. That’s because in 2005, Israel handed over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. And it did so without any preconditions: While the Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1982 as part of a peace treaty, the Palestinians received the Gaza Strip just like that. Apparently, signing a peace treaty was too much to ask of them.
And the Gazans showed their gratitude: with the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.
Currently, a good half of the Gaza Strip is controlled by Israel. This is necessary, because Israelis cannot be expected to live in the immediate vicinity of a terrorist regime that has nothing else in mind but to burn, torture, rape, and torment them to death.
However, when people speak of “settlements in the occupied territories,” they are not referring to Gaza, because there are no Jewish settlements there. They are primarily referring to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Supporters of a biblically motivated settlement policy call these same areas Judea and Samaria.
In the West Bank, violent riots by extremist settlers occur time and again. Some of these riots also take place in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. In such cases, they are attempts to recapture those areas. The current Israeli government does not punish such incidents adequately—if at all. In some cases, the construction of illegal settlements is even encouraged. All of this is rightly criticized, including by the Israeli media. But where does it lead when all Jewish settlers in the West Bank are indiscriminately equated with the minority of extremists and condemned across the board?
Must the West Bank be cleansed of Jews?
Today, nearly three million Palestinians and about 700,000 Jews live in the West Bank. A contractual agreement was reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority regarding the settlement areas for these two population groups: the Oslo Accords of 1993–1995. Under these agreements, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area A is under Palestinian control, Area C is under Israeli control, and in Area B, Israelis and Palestinians share control. In addition, there are areas in East Jerusalem whose status is disputed.
The Oslo Accords entail two separate legal and administrative systems: one for the Palestinians and another for the Jewish-Israeli settlers. This is far from ideal. However, it was intended only as a transitional solution on the path to a peace treaty that would regulate the handover of the West Bank to the Palestinians. But the Palestinians in the West Bank apparently aren’t too keen on peace treaties. In any case, the Palestinian leader at the time, the terrorist Arafat, broke off the peace negotiations.
Instead of peacefully taking over the West Bank, the Palestinians unleashed the Second Intifada in 2000: well over 100 suicide bombings in bars, clubs, restaurants, and buses. This wave of terror necessitated massive security measures: checks between the Palestinian sub-regions of the West Bank were tightened.
Until 1992, Palestinians had been able to enter Israel from the West Bank without any checks. Now a security barrier had to be erected between the West Bank and Israel.
So when Palestinians today complain about their status quo in the West Bank, they must be reminded: Their representatives agreed to this status quo with Israel. The fact that it has become a permanent situation is entirely the fault of the Palestinian side.
So when we talk about Jewish settlers in the West Bank, we must distinguish: Are we referring to the legal settlements in Area C or to illegal outposts?
As a rule, our media does not make this distinction clear. One might get the impression that all Jewish settlements in the West Bank are the work of the devil.
Are they? If so, we would have to demand that they all be evacuated. What would that mean in concrete terms?
Israel would have to relocate 700,000 people from the West Bank in a massive ethnic cleansing operation, solely because they are Jews. Then the West Bank would be “free of Jews.” And this would happen without a peace treaty—which the Palestinians have so far consistently refused to accept.
Yet the Palestinians would still not be satisfied. For they have consistently demanded for decades that Israel must allow the so-called Palestinian “refugees” to “return.” That would mean up to six million new citizens who have been raised to harbor irreconcilable hatred toward Israel and all Jews. This is in addition to the two million Palestinian citizens who already live here today.
So that, then, is what Israel would have to agree to if it wanted to satisfy the Palestine romantics:
- On the one hand: a Palestine free of Jews.
- On the other hand: an Israel in which a majority of millions upon millions of predominantly anti-Semitic Palestinians call the shots.
Denazification: The Next Step Toward Peace
In Gaza, Israel has learned from experience: If we hand over a territory to the Palestinians for self-rule, they turn it into a terrorist base with the sole goal of burning, raping, shooting, and torturing as many Jews to death as possible.
Based on this experience, Israel is now expected to kindly allow the Palestinians to establish a terrorist base in the West Bank as well. The West Bank, however, is sixteen times larger than Gaza and strategically ideal from a military standpoint: from its mountains, the small country of Israel can be easily surveyed and bombed.
If the Palestinians in the West Bank were then to do what they euphorically cheered for on October 7, 2023, our well-meaning Palestine romantics would once again have the opportunity to mourn dead Jews. Mourn? After the Hamas massacre on October 7, there wasn’t much sign of mourning among them.
The West Bank is occupied? Germany was once occupied, too. And that was a good thing. Because back then, we were Nazis.
Denazification: That would be the next step in the West Bank, too.