ON SUNDAY, a meeting in Jordan between top Israeli and Palestinian officials, called in a bid to halt the surge in deadly violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, ended with a joint statement that ‘reaffirmed the need to commit to de-escalation on the ground and prevent further violence.’
With US and Egyptian officials also participating in these talks, the statement contained the promise by Israeli government officials to stop ‘discussing setting up any new settlement units for four months and stop approving any new settlements for six months.’
Host nation Jordan, along with Egypt and the United States, stated that they considered ‘these understandings as major progress towards re-establishing and deepening relations between the two sides.’
This ‘promise’ by the Israeli officials met an immediate response from Israel’s finance minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich – who also has the responsibility over the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank – stating that he would not abide by any agreement on freezing settlement construction.
Writing on Twitter, Smotrich said: ‘I have no idea what they spoke about or not in Jordan. But one thing I do know: there will be no freeze on any building and development in settlements, not even for one day.’ He added that ‘it is under my authority’.
The meeting also drew a swift response from the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas with an official from the group saying the meeting was ‘worthless’ and wouldn’t change anything.
Hamas had called on the Palestinian Authority to withdraw from the meeting describing it as a US plot against Palestinian aspirations.
Within hours of this statement – showing just how worthless this meeting was – a group of Zionist settlers, backed and protected by Israeli troops, attacked a village near the city of Nablus in the northern part of the occupied West Bank shooting dead Sameh Aqtash a 37-year-old Palestinian.
Hundreds of Palestinians were injured during sustained attacks by settlers and troops on towns and villages in the area who set fire to dozens of homes, cars and other Palestinian-owned property.
An estimated 400 settlers took part in what observers described as a violent ‘rampage’. Sunday’s frenzied violence by settlers followed last week’s raid by Israeli troops on Nablus which killed 11 Palestinians.
This year so far, Israeli forces have killed 65 Palestinians, including 13 children, making the first two months of 2023 the deadliest for Palestinians compared to the same period in every year since 2000.
In a statement, the British Consulate General in Jerusalem said it was ‘Horrified by scenes of settler violence in Huwara and nearby villages yesterday’ and that ‘Settlers responsible for this violence must be brought to justice.’ The statement ended by calling for the ‘Government of Israel to hold the perpetrators of this dreadful crime to account.’
There is no chance that the Israeli government will bring any settler to justice, just as no Israeli soldier fears conviction for shooting dead Palestinian men women and children.
Indeed, Israeli premier Netanyahu has filled his coalition government with racists and fascists precisely to lead a pogrom against the Palestinian people.
While settlers enjoy the protection of troops to murder Palestinians and burn down their homes, the Netanyahu government has proposed a law to introduce the death penalty for ‘terrorists who intentionally or out of indifference cause the death of an Israeli citizen’.
In other words, the death penalty would only apply to Palestinians not Israelis.
Shamefully, the trade unions in Britain have remained silent on these atrocities being committed by Israel apart from six education unions issuing a joint call for a halt to the programme of demolishing Palestinian schools made in January.
Appeals to the Israelis along with ‘peace talks’ to ‘de-escalate’ the pogrom to drive Palestinians from their land are indeed ‘worthless’.
What is urgently required is for the trade unions to act by imposing a complete trade boycott of Israel and a campaign to raise massive funds to arm the Palestinian masses against the Israeli fascists.
The TUC and trade unions must immediately give full material support to the Palestinian struggle to establish an independent state of Palestine where Jews, Christians and Palestinians can live in peace.
