Amid the world’s (and the EU’s) inertia, Israel is dismantling Palestine

Brussels – Europe and the world stand by while Israel definitively buries any prospect of building a Palestinian state, and likely, at the same time, also the possibility of a political resolution to the decades-long Middle East crisis. After approving the controversial plan for the creation of the E1 settlement, which splits the West Bank in two, Benjamin Netanyahu‘s cabinet launched a land offensive on Gaza City tonight.

Taking advantage of the distraction of its Western partners, deeply involved in laying the ground for a potential negotiated settlement of the war in Ukraine, Tel Aviv is pressing the accelerator to destroy what little remains of Palestine, simultaneously conducting two different but complementary actions in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

 After days of intense bombardments, on the night of 20-21 August, then ground operation of the Israeli Army (IDF) began for the definitive conquest of Gaza City, the capital of the coastal exclave now almost completely razed to the ground by the extremely violent military campaign launched in October 2023 in response to attacks by Hamas militiamen. The humanitarian situation in the area is dire, as the United Nations, international, and local NGOs and associations, as well as the Jewish state’s allies, denounce daily, with the number of deaths exceeding 62,000 people.

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity) is pressing ahead with his plans to permanently reoccupy the Strip, from which Israel withdrew in 2005. To carry out the plan, his cabinet has recalled 60,000 reservists to deploy on the front line in the coming weeks. Several Israeli NGOs now explicitly speak of the operations in Gaza, branding them as genocide of the Palestinian people, conducted both by military means and by weaponizing hunger.

 It also becomes increasingly challenging for the outside world to know what is happening in the Strip, as the IDF continues to indiscriminately target journalists (over 240 killed in 22 months, according to UN data) suspected of collusion with Hamas. While the Palestinian group and the government in Tel Aviv are exchanging reciprocal accusations of sabotaging the truce negotiations, Israeli citizens
fill the streets to demand the end of hostilities and the release of the hostages (about fifty, of which about twenty are still alive) in a series of mobilizations that are among the largest in the country’s history. 

In parallel, the
situation is deteriorating also in the West Bank, where the domination of the occupying power has long taken on the connotations of a system of apartheid (as denounced, once again, by Israeli NGOs). For many months, there has been a resurgence of violence by settlers (backed by the IDF) that goes hand in hand with the continuous demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure.

 Just yesterday, the Israeli government gave the final go-ahead to the controversial settlement expansion project in the so-called E1 area (short for East 1), which will establish a new corridor between occupied East Jerusalem and the existing colony of Maale Adumim. With this move – which Tel Aviv has planned since the 1990s, but never implemented due to opposition from Western allies, including the US – the West Bank, one of the nuclei of a hypothetical State of Palestine, will be de fact cut in two, interrupting the territorial continuity between Ramallah in the north (headquarters of the Palestinian National Authority) and Betlehem in the south.

“The Palestinian state is being erased not with slogans, but with concrete actions,” triumphantly proclaimed Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of the leading men of the extreme messianic right on which the survival of the sixth Netanyahu government depends. “Every settlement, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea,” he added.

 The Prime Minister, visiting a West Bank settlement founded a quarter of a century ago, proudly vindicated the executive line: “Twenty-five years ago I said we would do everything to guarantee our control over the Land of Israel, to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, to prevent attempts to uproot us from here. Thank God, we have kept our promise.” 

These actions are an outrageous violation of international law and, as confirmed by statements of a similar tenor, are being perpetrated with the explicit intent to put a tombstone on any ambition to build a Palestinian state. Smotrich emphasized that this is also a response to the plans by several Western states to recognize the State of Palestine next month, thereby formally acknowledging a reality that had already been evident to all for many years.

 Although world chancelleries find it hard to admit, the two-state solution has now become a formula devoid of any real meaning, as none of the governments in Tel Aviv over the past 30 years has ever taken concrete steps to realize what the Oslo process envisions and bring closer the formation of an autonomous and independent state of Palestine living “in peace and security” alongside Israel.

From Brussels, however, come only the usual rhetorical, worn-out, and tiresome comments. The Commission’s spokespersons continue to refer journalists to the posts on X by Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, repeating that “diplomacy is the main tool.” However, at this point, expressions such as “appalling humanitarian situation” and “protection of the civilian population” sound almost grotesque when combined with the images coming from the ground. 

“The EU rejects any attempt at territorial and demographic change in the Gaza Strip,” Anitta Hipper, the High Representative’s spokesperson, reiterated yet again while emphasizing that the E1 plan “undermines the two-state solution and violates international law.” Too bad that there is little or nothing on the horizon in terms of concrete action, and the 27 member states are not even able to agree on a partial suspension of Horizon+ funds earmarked for Israel in the 2028-2034 budget.