December 12,
2024
Illy
Pe’ery
Within
hours of the fall of the Assad regime, Israeli forces were already pushing into
Syrian territory, conquering the Syrian side of Mount Hermon/Jabal A-Shaykh and
the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that has
been in place for more than half a century. But the army were not the only ones
quick to react; so, too, was the Israeli settler movement.
Map showing the approximate locations of Israel’s military expansion into Lebanon and Syria, with darker blue indicating the most recent advances, created using data from satellite imagery, geolocation, and Israeli military statements. (Ahmad Baydoun)
“We
have to conquer and destroy. As much as possible, and as quickly as possible,”
wrote one member of Uri Tsafon — a group founded earlier this year to promote
Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon — in the organization’s WhatsApp group.
“We need to check according to the new laws in Syria whether Israelis are
allowed to invest in real estate and start buying land there,” another member
wrote. In another settler WhatsApp group, members shared maps of Syria and
tried to identify potential areas for settlement.
The
Nachala movement — led by Daniella Weiss, who has been spearheading efforts in
recent months to resettle Gaza — expressed a similar sentiment in a post on
Facebook: “Whoever still thinks it’s possible to leave our fate in the hands of
a foreign actor — forsakes Israel’s security!” it said. “Jewish settlement is
the only thing that will bring about regional stability and security for the
State of Israel, along with a stable economy, national resilience, and
deterrence.
“In
Gaza, in Lebanon, in the entire Golan Heights including the ‘Syrian Plateau,’
and in the entire Mount Hermon,” it added — attaching a biblical map titled
“Abraham’s Borders,” in which Israel’s territory includes the entirety of
Lebanon as well as most of Syria and Iraq.
This
is not mere talk; these groups mean business. Nachala has already mapped out
where it plans to build new Jewish settlements across the Gaza Strip, and
claims that more than 700 families have committed to move when the opportunity
arises (Daniella Weiss herself has already been into Gaza with a military
escort to scout out potential locations). And last week, Uri Tsafon, which has
bided its time over the past year, made its first attempt at a land grab in
southern Lebanon — where Israeli soldiers are still present following the
ceasefire deal.
On
Dec. 5, the group’s founder, Amos Azaria, who is a computer science professor
at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank, crossed the border into Lebanon
along with six families in an attempt to establish an outpost. They reached the
area of Maroun A-Ras, around two kilometers into Lebanese territory, and
planted cedar trees in memory of an Israeli soldier who fell in battle in
Lebanon two months ago. Several hours passed before the Israeli army evicted
them and forced them back into Israel. (In response to The Hottest Place in
Hell’s request for comment on this incident, the Israeli police said that
according to the army, no Israeli civilians had crossed into Lebanon.)
Even
back in June, at Uri Tsafon’s “First Lebanon Conference,” held on Zoom, members
were already talking about settling Syria. Dr. Hagi Ben Artzi, Benjamin
Netanyahu’s brother-in-law and a member of the group, told attendees that
Israel’s borders should be those promised to the Jewish people in biblical
times: “We don’t want even one meter beyond the Euphrates River. We are humble.
[But] what we were promised, we must conquer.”
And
with the fall of the Assad regime and the advance of Israeli troops into Syrian
territory, they were eager to seize the opportunity. “We called on the
government to capture as much as possible of what was Syrian territory,” Azaria
told the Israeli magazine The Hottest Place in Hell. “The rebels are exactly
[the same as] Hamas. Maybe now they’re making nice noises, but ultimately they
are Sunnis who will find the common enemy, which is us. We need to do as much
as possible now, while it’s possible.”
On
Dec. 11, a small group of Israeli settlers claimed to have crossed into an area
of Syrian territory now under Israeli military control, where they filmed
themselves praying. The Israeli army has not yet responded to +972’s request
for comment on this incident.
‘The
most important thing is to be on the other side of the fence’
Uri
Tsafon takes its name from a biblical verse calling to “Awaken, O north.” Its
website describes Lebanon as “a state that does not really exist or function,”
and claims that the true expanse of Israel’s northern Galilee stretches as far
north as Lebanon’s Litani River — which Israeli forces had reached just as the
recent ceasefire agreement came into effect, having forcibly displaced tens of
thousands of residents of southern Lebanese villages in the process.
“We
[started off with] quieter activities,” Azaria told The Hottest Place in Hell.
“We called on the government and the army to go to war in the north … [and] we
drove to Mount Meron under the air force base and did reconnaissance toward
Lebanon.”
But
last week’s attempt to establish an outpost in southern Lebanon marked the
group’s entry into a new phase of activity that aims to force the government’s
hand. “The goal was and still is to establish a settlement in Lebanon,” Azaria
said. “We are not waiting for the state to tell us, ‘Come’ — we are working to
make it happen.”
According
to Azaria, the movement already boasts thousands of members “who are very eager
and interested” in its activities. Last week’s action was not advertised in
advance, because “[the army] would have blocked us and not allowed us to
enter.” And they certainly didn’t face much resistance: “The gate was open and
we just drove in,” he said.
Azaria
isn’t worried that they didn’t succeed; in fact, he sees their eviction as the
first step in a longer-term plan of action that has characterized the settler
movement since its inception more than half a century ago.
“The
first time we’re evicted, we go,” he explained. “The second time, we stay
longer. The [third] time, we stay the night. That’s how we’ll continue until
there is a settlement. At first, [the army] demolishes it, and then they reach
an agreement that there will be one settlement, and that’s it. In the meantime,
we start working on the next settlement. It may not be realistic that the state
will build a settlement [of its own accord], but that doesn’t mean the state
has to demolish a community that we built.
“In
the first stage, we’ll settle where we can,” he continued. “There’s no interest
in a specific location; the most important thing is to be on the other side of
the fence. We have to fight the taboo of the border that was established by
France and England 100 years ago. We will live on the Lebanese border, God
willing, and if we are there, the border will move north and the army will
guard it.
“Just
as the army is fighting in both Gaza and the north, it’s the same with
settlements: we have to settle everywhere,” Azaria went on. “In Gaza, there is
Nachala and several other bodies [promoting settlement]. In the north, we are
the only movement that really deals with this right now. Nachala does it more
with permits. We operate in a more ‘spearhead’ manner.”
And
Azaria is confident that support will come from the political echelon. “When I
founded [Uri Tsafon], people didn’t talk about settling southern Lebanon at
all,” he explained. “We’re changing the discourse. We’re in contact with
Knesset members. I assume that just as it took time for them to agree to talk
about settlement in Gaza, it will also take time to start talking about
settlement in Lebanon. [Likud MK] Ariel Kallner mentioned something. [So did
Otzma Yehudit MK] Limor Son Har-Melech. Slowly, more and more people dare to
talk about it.”
Ramzy Baroud
The ongoing war and genocide in Gaza
is unprecedented. Nothing that Israel and its supporters can say or do will
avoid the historical accountability of the extermination of the Palestinian
people in the Gaza Strip.
The above assertion is critical,
both for ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and achieving Palestinian
freedom. This is why.
In all past wars and adjoining war
crimes, Israel managed to push the reset button in its relationship with
occupied Palestinians.
Following each war, the Israeli
hasbara, propaganda machine, would start – utilizing the always-willing western
mainstream media – to paint Palestinians in a negative light and to present
Israel, a country that is supposedly in a permanent state of self-defense, as
the victim, or even the lone defender of western civilization.
This campaign is always paralleled
with the whitewashing of Israel in popular entertainment, from Hollywood movies
to TV sit-coms, to magazine covers with such titles as “Gorgeous Photos Capture
The Unseen Lives Of Female Soldiers In Israel”.
Generally, Western politicians of
varied ideologies, along with intellectuals, news talking heads and church
leaders all praise, in tandem, the miracle that is Israel.
At the beginning of Israel’s
genocidal war in October 2023, for example, British playwright Tom Stoppard
said that “before we take up a position on what’s happening now, we should
consider whether this is a fight over territory or a struggle between civilization
and barbarism.” He, of course, leaned towards the latter.
This Israeli tactic always includes
the demonization of Palestinians as well, where the victim becomes the
‘terrorist’ and those under siege become the besiegers. This last claim, in
particular, was expressed in the words of former US Secretary of State Madeline
Albright who said, in an interview with NBC in August 2000, that “the Israelis
feel under siege from the Palestinian rock throwers and the various gangs that
have been roaming around.”
Why will those same Israeli tactics
fail this time? Indeed, they will fail, not due to Israel’s lack of trying. In
fact, Israel is already bracing for the fight of a lifetime.
One new tactic that Israel is
already employing in ‘friendly’ countries, like the United States, is the
passing of laws to block the mere conversation on the Israeli genocide in Gaza,
so that it will have exclusive access to the American public.
On November 14, the US House of
Representatives passed two bills: H.R.6408 and H.R.9495. The latter, in
particular, aimed at giving the Treasury Secretary the authorization to revoke
an organization’s tax-exempt status and decide when the designation would end.
Once these bills pass the Senate and
are approved by the president, the most democratic and peaceful expressions of
rejecting the Israeli occupation of Palestine and demanding sensible US foreign
policy will be equated to a direct violation of the law and, in some cases, to
terrorism – as defined by the Department of Treasury, at the behest of the
pro-Israeli lobby.
But even these desperate attempts
will not quell the anger or distract from the conversation, for the following
reasons:
One, not only did Israel commit
genocide in the Gaza Strip, but this genocide and extermination are being
investigated and are acknowledged by the world’s largest legal institutions,
namely the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal
Court (ICC).
Two, unlike previous investigations,
for example, the Goldstone Report probing the 2008-09 war on Gaza, the
international community has already taken some practical steps to hold Israeli
war criminals accountable, including an arrest warrant issued on November 21
against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant.
Three, those who routinely come to
Israel’s defense, the US and other Western governments, are now directly
clashing with the very international law they helped articulate after World War
II, depriving them of any credibility as ‘neutral’ parties in this conflict.
For example, Biden said that the
warrants were “outrageous” while the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign
Affairs claimed that Netanyahu and other ministers enjoy immunity since Israel
is not a party to the ICC.
Four, despite the inherent bias of
western media, Palestinian journalists, isolated and killed in large numbers,
managed to communicate the genocide to the rest of the world, making it
impossible for Israel to hide its crimes.
Five, the impact of the Israeli
genocide on Gaza has already penetrated the various layers of public opinion,
unprecedented in history.
Typically, the conversation on
Palestine is confined to specific strata of society, reaching academics, social
justice activists and other groups interested in politics and global issues.
Today, ordinary people have been
made aware of the conversation, to the extent that it is widely believed that
anger over Gaza has contributed in determining the outcome of the latest US
elections.
In Africa, the growing political and
public interest in the Palestinian struggle have re-enlivened the spirit of
anti-colonial, liberation struggles on the continent, bringing many countries,
from South Africa to Algeria, back to the frontlines of global solidarity.
No amount of Israeli propaganda,
unjust laws, unfair categorizations of Palestinians or the hardly-clad models
of the IDF, will ever succeed in reversing these realities.
Now, there can be no reset buttons.
Rather, the global momentum of Palestine’s liberation will accelerate in the
coming months and years.
The price exacted from the
Palestinian people for this earth-shattering moment has been high and painful,
but the history of all national liberation struggles, Palestine included,
demonstrates that the price for freedom is always high.
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