Forcible transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank is a reality. The Israeli government, its security forces, and Israeli settlers are actively targeting Palestinian communities through a growing matrix of tools geared towards making their lives so economically untenable, functionally unbearable, and fundamentally unsafe that they are compelled to abandon their homes and lands, disperse their communities, and give up their means of earning their livelihoods.

Israel’s long-used methods include forbidding Palestinians from legally building homes and other structures, preventing access to infrastructure, including electricity, water, and roads, and ongoing demolitions in 60% of the West Bank. Targeted violence carried out by settlers, and tolerated if not actively supported by Israeli security forces — – including harassment, threats, destruction of property, and outright terrorism in the formed of armed, lethal attacks — has been used to suppress and threaten Palestinian life in the West Bank – and it has been accelerating in frequency and brazenness under the new Israeli government. Together, these factors have already led to the displacement of multiple Palestinian shepherding communities in the West Bank. Today, more communities are in danger, as Israel seeks to remove Palestinians in key areas across the West Bank in order to take over their land.

In this briefing, we will learn more about these communities, as well as discuss the official and unofficial tools Israel used to displace them, and how this oppression amounts to the war crime of forcible transfer.  Featuring Kareem Jubran (B’Tselem) & Sarit Michaeli (B’Tselem) with Dr. Yara Asi (FMEP).

FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with the new Executive Director of B’Tselem, Yuli Novak, about the opportunities and challenges for human rights protection in an apartheid regime, as well as the relationship between personal and political change.

• Israel Establishes Official Borders for Three Outposts
• IDF Demolishes Illegal Settler Structures Near Yitzhar
• Settler Leader Pushes Campaign to Seize Mt. Ebal, Located in Area B
• New Civil Admin Head Nominated, Without Input or Approval of Smotrich
• Real Estate Developer Files Suit Against Settlers, IDF
• Blistering New UN Report Calls Israeli Occupation Illegal & Calls for Reparations
• Settler Terrorism as a Means of State-Sanctioned Ethnic Cleansing
• Bonus Reads

1.Bills, Resolutions & Letters

2. Members of Congress’ Most Excellent Recess Adventures in the Middle East
3. Israel & AIPAC in the 2024 Election Cycle (things are heating up)
4. Hearings & Markups
5. Media & Reports
6. Members on the Record

“Two masked Israeli women soldiers with rifles and an attack dog forced five female members of a Palestinian family to strip naked, each one separately, in the West Bank city of Hebron in July. The soldiers threatened to release the dog if the women did not comply, the family says…There aren’t many reports of Palestinian women being forced to strip naked during an army raid on their home. In her 15 years as a field researcher in Hebron for the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, Manal al-Ja’bari has recorded about 20 such cases. But she believes that such phenomena at rifle point have increased in recent months. Most of the women refuse to be interviewed by reporters about the trauma, Ja’bari says…Ja’bari, the B’Tselem field researcher, recorded the women’s accounts a day after the raid, describing the dread and shock that the Ajlunis would still feel weeks later. For about four weeks, the children were waking up in the middle of the night in fear and were wetting their beds. The women often had the feeling that soldiers were still in the house and jumped whenever they heard a noise outside.” See also these reports from B’Tselem: Soldiers enter homes of extended ‘Ajlouni family with dogs, separate children from their parents and steal items. Female soldiers strip search women and Violence, collective punishment, and systematic looting of Jewelry and money: four nighttime home invasions in Hebron, May-June 2023

“This was not the first settler attack on the Abu ‘Awad family, whose roughly two dozen members made up the entirety of the small shepherding community of Widady, located at the southernmost edge of the South Hebron Hills…More than once, members of the family tried to approach the authorities, but to no avail. After the assaults in December, Radwan went to file a complaint with Israeli police in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, but the police accused Radwan of instigating the settler attacks and refused to accept his complaint…And in the early morning of March 12th, three Israeli settlers, accompanied by an Israeli soldier, broke into the family’s home, vandalized it, and threatened to kill Abu ‘Awad if he returned to his fields with the Israeli activists…Unwilling to live in perpetual fear, on July 16th, the residents of Widady a-Tahta dismantled their own homes, loaded their belongings onto the backs of trucks, and left the land on which they had lived for half a century…The forced depopulation of Widady is not an anomaly but, in fact, part of an emerging phenomenon. Faced with constant threat of settler attack, entire Palestinian communities in Area C—the roughly 60% of the West Bank’s territory which is under full Israeli control—are fleeing their land. According to B’Tselem, in just one area of the West Bank, east of the city of Ramallah, four Palestinian communities have been forced off their land by settler violence…While settlers have built outposts and carried out attacks under previous Israeli governments, the elevation of the settler and Kahanist right to positions of state power has increased the frequency and destructiveness of the attacks. Support from politicians like Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has emboldened settler violence.” See also from Haaretz: Opinion | Israeli Settlers Target the Weakest Link as Ethnic Cleansing Becomes Policy (Gideon Levy);  Disturbing Videos Show Settler Violence Against Palestinian Homebuyers (Hagar Shezaf); Opinion | Don’t Be Fooled: Israel’s Far-right Government Plots Its West Bank Moves With a Calculated Frenzyå (Amira Hass)

“We are moving into a new phase of armed resistance in the West Bank. The broad contours of this phase have only recently begun to reveal themselves, and they suggest that the West Bank has become a crucial front for the battle over political legitimacy among Palestinian factions. It started in early August when the West Bank witnessed a rise in the number of army raids, lone wolf operations, arrests of resistance fighters, and protracted street battles in cities and refugee camps across the northern West Bank. Israeli security analysts noted the past month’s escalation of Palestinian “terrorism,” pointing out that it was the product of a lack of a strategic and political vision for dealing with the West Bank on the part of the current Israeli government, relegating the army to having to fight “wars of attrition” against resistance groups through military means alone — as opposed to using military force in tandem with a more “holistic” strategy that includes containment through “soft power.” But the other reason the Israeli intelligence attributes to the uptick in resistance is the increased “encouragement of terrorism” by Palestinian political factions…It is true that Palestinian resistance factions, whose top leaders are largely based in Gaza or abroad, are now operating with a greater degree of confidence with respect to supporting resistance. This can be gleaned not only in the rise of armed resistance operations but also in the fact that the resistance factions are openly claiming credit for them.” See also from Middle East Eye: Israeli forces kill Palestinian in West Bank raid, Israeli forces kill Palestinian in West Bank refugee camp raid; See also: Analysis | Lone-wolf Attacks by Palestinians Convey Weakness and Don’t Stop Israel’s Land Theft (Amira Hass//Haaretz); Israel kill two Palestinians, destroys even more of Nur Shams camp (Al Jazeera); Palestinian teen wounds two Israelis in ‘Jerusalem attack’ (New Arab)

“According to Haaretz, 169 Arab Israelis have been killed since the beginning of the year, compared with 112 in all of 2022.  Arab Israelis make up some 21% of the general population…Tuesday’s strike comes as another Arab Israeli man was killed earlier that day in the town of Iksal, in the north of the country. Two other people were injured in the shooting. Three people were shot and killed during the weekend in Kafr Qara in two separate incidents. The village’s imam, Sheikh Sami Abed al-Latif, was shot and killed as he was exiting the mosque last Saturday…”We are talking about a national crime crisis. It’s not a problem of one sector, and it is not the result of a weakness on the part of the security forces. This is a deliberate policy aimed at crushing Arab society,” [Umm al Fahm Mayor Samir] Mahamid told Al-Monitor. He feels the crime wave is only a symptom of a society in crisis after decades of discrimination. “That is why it is impossible to handle this crisis as a security issue. When dozens of students miss school after every shooting, when bereaved families receive nothing from the state, things must be dealt differently.”

“Palestinian prisoners jailed by Israel are set to begin an open-ended hunger strike in protest against far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s decision to limit family visits to once every two months, the Supreme Emergency Committee of the Prisoner National Movement announced on Sunday. The committee said in a statement that the strike will begin on September 14 to demand the restoration of rights denied by new draconian policies, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.” See also Israeli prison services transfer Marwan Barghouti, other Palestinian leaders to Ofer ahead of prisoners’ hunger strike (New Arab); Israel: Ben Gvir restricts family visits for Palestinian prisoners (Middle East Eye)

“Israel closed the main commercial crossing in the Gaza Strip, effectively banning exports from the coastal territory after saying it had uncovered explosives in a shipment of clothes to the occupied West Bank. Gaza’s fishermen, with their perishable exports, were among the first to feel the pain. The new restrictions choke off the territory’s already ailing economy. They come on top of the punishing 16-year blockade that Israel and Egypt have maintained since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the enclave in 2007. The blockade, which Israel says is needed to prevent Hamas from arming, severely limits the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza.” See also Gisha’s 9/7/23 update, “Collective Punishment”; Gaza exports to resume after Israel agrees to reopen vital crossing (Al Jazeera); See also No electricity, jobs, or freedom: 36 hours in Gaza (Samah Salaime//+972: “It has been almost a month since I returned from Gaza. And although I was there for less than 48 hours, to give a workshop on women’s mental health, my thoughts and feelings keep returning to what I witnessed there. In this hot and unpleasant summer, in every attempt to return to normality, I couldn’t help but ask myself: how do the people in Gaza do it?”)

“A former head of the Mossad intelligence agency has said Israel is imposing a form of apartheid on the Palestinians, joining a growing number of prominent Israelis to compare the occupation of the West Bank to South Africa’s defunct system of racial oppression. But Tamir Pardo’s views will have added impact because of the high regard for Mossad in Israel and because they come at a time when far-right members of Israel’s government are moving to kill off any prospect of an independent Palestinian state. Pardo told the Associated Press that Israel’s mechanisms for controlling the Palestinians, from restrictions on movement to placing them under military law while Jewish settlers in the occupied territories are governed by civilian courts, matched the old South Africa.”

“Israel is on track to become the next country to join the U.S.’ coveted Visa Waiver Program, with an official announcement expected from the Department of Homeland Security before the end of this month, officials with knowledge of the process told Jewish Insider. While some of the fine details of the arrangement still need to be resolved before Israel formally qualifies for the program, those appear to be minor matters and should be settled within the next week, according to the sources. A signing ceremony could even take place ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline set by the U.S.” See also Why Israel has ended travel restrictions for Palestinian Americans (NPR audio)

“Lew, 68, is a lawyer who has had an extensive career in Washington policy. He served as treasury secretary during President Barack Obama’s second term and before that was Obama’s chief of staff. Lew also served as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama and Clinton administrations.”

“As 1.2 million Palestinians are potentially days away from a food shortage directly linked to Washington political infighting, civil society organizations are urging U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to override a Republican-issued hold on $75 million in food assistance. Twenty-three civil society organizations warned that “a devastating humanitarian crisis looms with more than 1.2 million people potentially left without food as early as mid-September, including hundreds of thousands of children who will be left hungry.”…Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Michael McCaul — the top Republicans on the Senate and House foreign affairs committees — have placed holds on the State Department from providing the previously appropriated funding, which is designated for food assistance for Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA has warned for months that it would not be able to refill their warehouses — which are distributed among the aforementioned 1.2 million Palestinian refugees, including 500,000 Palestinian children — if the funds were not provided by September 1.” See also Gaza: Students face shortened terms after UNRWA cuts hit education services (Middle East Eye)

“Israel continued to sell advanced weapons systems to Myanmar’s armed forces until at least early 2022, a year after the rise of its junta regime. According to documents and sources who spoke with Haaretz, the government-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems maintained their trade with Myanmar despite an international arms embargo on the country, and despite a 2017 ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice and the Israeli government’s own 2018 statement saying it stopped such sales.” See also Apple releases major security update to counter Israeli firm NSO’s Pegasus spyware (Times of Israel)

See also Papua New Guinea opens Israel embassy in West Jerusalem (Al Jazeera); Israel opens new embassy in Bahrain, agrees to boost trade relations (Al Jazeera); Barcelona mayor renews twinning with Tel Aviv just months after links severed (New Arab)

“Netanyahu has been unilaterally changing tenets of our relationship and testing us. It’s time for the United States to test his government with a clear choice: annexation or normalization…For now, the only thing I’m certain of is what has to be stopped: This Israeli coalition has to be stopped. And, even more important, a bad deal — one that enables Netanyahu to crush the Israeli Supreme Court and win normalization from Saudi Arabia and pay such a small price to the Palestinians that the right-wing zealots in his cabinet can continue driving Israel over a cliff — absolutely has to be stopped.” See also US delegation heading to Saudi Arabia amid Biden normalization push (Times of Israel)

“I am often asked, in interviews and on university campuses, what role I think literature plays in the Palestinian liberation movement. And though the question itself isn’t subversive, it certainly feels that way: What is the role of literature? Who does it serve, here, in the English-speaking world, in fancy hotel lobbies and Ivy League auditoriums, planets away from the makeshift rifles of the refugee camps? It’s hard to say. It’s hard to imagine what a poem can do in the barrel of a gun…Still…the fact remains that many Palestinians find themselves having to represent their communities regardless of whether it is their responsibility. Our politicians are incompetent and complacent, even complicit. Decades of destabilization, of colonial violence and erasure, have placed us in this sour predicament. Any given Palestinian, especially an artist, and especially in the mainstream, may be tasked with the job of a community spokesperson and, so often, it happens overnight…When I speak about ethnic cleansing in my home and the larger Jerusalem on television, I don’t consider myself to be an ambassador of the Palestinian People nor was I elected to be one (in all fairness, neither was the PA). But in that moment, I represent the Palestinian People—against my wishes and possibly even against theirs.” See also Nurturing a new home for Palestinian literature (Vera Sajrawi//+972); See also +972’s regular reporting on Palestinian culture

“In a recent speech, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas repeated a number of antisemitic canards he has made over the years, including unfounded claims about the the origins of Ashkenazi Jews and that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had Jews slaughtered because of their “social role” as moneylenders, not because of enmity toward Judaism. Speaking last month at his Fatah party’s Revolutionary Council, Abbas outlined the baseless theory that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from ancient Israelites but an ancient Turkish people known as the Khazars, who according to a discredited theory converted to Judaism en masse…“They say that Hitler killed the Jews because they were Jews and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion,” Abbas said in August…“The [Europeans] fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money and so on and so forth,” he continued.” See also U.S., U.K., Jewish Orgs. and pro-Palestinian Activists Condemn Abbas’ Holocaust Revisionism (Haaretz); Antisemitic Comments by Palestinian Leader Cause Uproar (NYT); Paris strips Abbas of top medal: ‘You justified the extermination of Europe’s Jews’ (Times of Israel)

“A report issued on Wednesday by the Finance Ministry indicates that foreign investment transactions in Israel in the first quarter of 2023 amounted to about $2.6 billion — a decrease of 60% compared to the same periods in 2022 and 2020. The report, drafted by the ministry’s chief economist, Shmuel Abramson, inspects foreign investments and trade agreements around the globe and in Israel in 2022, and also includes data for the first three months of this year.”

“In fact, the great majority of those who are so contemptuous of Ben-Gvir live very well with an Israel of Jewish supremacy – they just don’t, heaven forbid, shout it from the rooftops. This is the method that underlies the Israeli regime: to ensure “absolute equality of rights,” as per the Declaration of Independence (and then to impose a military regime on Palestinian citizens and plunder their lands); to enable Palestinian subjects in the territories to petition the High Court of Justice (which in its turn validates torture, house demolitions, incarceration without trial and land theft); to launch an investigation when soldiers kill Palestinians (and then to close the case with no indictments); to be a “startup nation” (and utilize the advanced technology developed here to upgrade rule over the Palestinians); to speak when needed about the “peace process” (and all the while continue to build settlements)…Everything – to kill, dispossess, oppress – only not from the rooftops, so that international legitimacy is maintained, so as not to become like South Africa during the apartheid regime – amid a judicious implementation of apartheid. Although this technique is more time-consuming, calls for patience and a certain skill, if one looks at the bottom line of 100 years of Zionism, it’s impossible to argue with the fact that so far, at least, it has succeeded. A good trick: Practice apartheid and be considered, in the eyes of the world – and even in our own eyes – a democracy.”

“More than 150 Eritrean asylum seekers and dozens of police were injured Saturday in Tel Aviv after demonstrations outside an event sponsored by the Eritrean Embassy turned violent, Israeli officials said. The melee was the latest violence to break out at global festivals to celebrate 30 years of Eritrean independence but which have sparked fury among the opponents of longtime Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, one of the most repressive leaders in the world. Israeli police in riot gear and on horseback struggled to disperse crowds as rioters broke store windows, grappled with officers and smashed vehicle windshields…Most of the Eritreans were refugees and asylum seekers who fled forced conscription and repression in the East African country, which Afwerki has led since its independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Some Afwerki supporters were reportedly at the scene, fighting with government opponents. Similar clashes have flared at recent Eritrean events across Europe and North America.” See also  Why were Eritrean factions fighting on the streets of Israel’s Tel Aviv? (Al Jazeera); Netanyahu Calls to Expel Unauthorized Immigrants After Eritreans Clash (NYT); See also No Witnesses, No Evidence: Israel’s ‘Case’ Against the Eritreans Being Held Without Trial (Haaretz: “Dozens of Eritrean nationals were detained and locked up without trial after rival factions clashed in Tel Aviv at the weekend.”)

“The general Israeli public does not know that the Eritrean community in Israel lives under double persecution: on the one hand, by successive right-wing governments in Israel, and on the other, threats by government agents in Eritrea. Now, when things have spiraled out of control, the Netanyahu government, the most extreme in Israeli history, is once again threatening asylum seekers with deportation — a blatantly undemocratic and illegal move. But the government’s incitement hides the fact that the riots broke out precisely because of the long-standing policy of the Israeli authorities, which protects agents of the Eritrean regime. In 2019, Amnesty International published a report on the long reach of the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the ruling and sole legal political party in Eritrea, and the way it extorts refugees who have fled the country…This weekend’s violent events in Tel Aviv were, first and foremost, an uprising by an oppressed community against its oppressors. Instead of protecting refugees as required by the 1951 Refugee Convention, the police and the government are allowing the ongoing persecution of Eritreans in Israel. When they rebel against this persecution, the police open fire on them. The solution to the issue of Eritrean refugees has been clear for years: instead of persecuting the opposition, the state should recognize them as refugees, and those who are agents of a dictatorial totalitarian state, whose sole purpose is to immiserate the lives of actual asylum seekers, should be the ones deported back to their country.”

“On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of Israelis gathered outside the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium high school in central Tel Aviv for the launch of a new letter by young conscientious objectors under the banner of “Youth Against Dictatorship.” Despite pressure from the far right and the Education Ministry, and despite the decision of the high school’s board to cancel the event, hundreds came to hear the students read out the letter, participate in workshops, and to support the 230 young people who signed the letter and who plan to refuse enlistment into the Israeli army…As opposed to previous so-called “refusenik letters,” the current letter connects opposition to the government’s judicial overhaul to conscientious objection due to the occupation…We interviewed eight teenagers who signed the letter and spoke about their decision to refuse to join the army.” See also A lesson on Israeli ‘democracy’ from an 18-year-old draft refuser (Yahli Agai//+972: “I regularly hear people of our generation — which is very active and politically aware — express the feeling that our parents have failed. It’s a harsh statement, but the reason it resonates with so many of us is that it has some truth to it. We feel that our parents have until now chosen to ignore the monster of the dictatorship [that already exists]: a corrupt prime minister who crushes the justice system; manipulative politicians who keep entire communities poor and ignorant so that they continue to vote for them; ministers and mayors who serve greedy tycoons and repeatedly screw over the weakest people. From silencing critical discourse in the education system to neglecting Palestinian localities and towns in the periphery, to kicking poor people — mainly Mizrahim — out of public housing and onto the street. From the [West Bank] settlements that violate international law and whose residents commit fundamentalist Jewish terrorism, to the expulsion of Palestinian communities from Area C, to decades of military occupation over an entire people that puts us all in a nightmarish cycle of blood in which everyone is a murderer and everyone is murdered.”

See also A Letter to IDF Soldiers, by Ellen Siegel, a Jewish American nurse who worked in a hospital in Sabra camp during the 1982 massacre and subsequently testified before the Kahan Commission of Inquiry in Jerusalem.

“In September 2012, on the 30th anniversary of the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, I wrote a letter to the Israeli soldiers who were on duty there. This September 2023, on the 41st anniversary of that massacre, we mark another atrocity in a Palestinian refugee camp, this one in Jenin, in the Occupied Territories. I am again writing a letter but this time to those Israeli soldiers on active duty who were in Jenin. I wonder if the children of those soldiers who were in Beirut participated in the invasion and destruction of this West Bank city. 

“Dear Israeli soldiers: Did you notice what a refugee camp looks like before you attacked? Were you aware of the massive overcrowding, the lack of ventilation, the open sewage system and the poor delivery of proper health care or an inadequate educational system? Did you realize that you live in a better world?…Will you grow old in an apartheid state?”

“Thirty years after the Oslo Accords sought to foster peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the daughter of one of its architects is trying to find a solution based on sharing, not separation. May Pundak, the daughter of Ron Pundak, is the CEO of the Israeli-Palestinian peace organization A Land for All. Her group proposes a confederate system it labels Two States, One Homeland, in which Israel and Palestine would have separate states but shared joint institutions that oversee common interests – similar to the European Union. His daughter says Oslo linked “our imagination of hope and peace with separation … [but] the paradigm of separation is flawed [because] reality doesn’t speak of separation anymore.””

“Campaign groups have expressed outrage after a panel of British lawmakers examining the government’s controversial anti-boycott bill this week did not hear evidence from any Palestinians, whose rights will likely be affected by the legislation. The proposed law, officially called the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill, seeks to prevent local councils and other public bodies from engaging in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. A cross-party committee of MPs heard oral evidence from lawyers, human rights organisations, Jewish community bodies, and pro-Israel groups on Tuesday and Thursday – without one Palestinian witness present. “It is outrageous that not a single representative of Palestinian civil society nor the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which leads BDS campaigns here in the UK, has been invited to give evidence to place the proper facts on the record,” PSC director Ben Jamal told The New Arab…Emily Hilton, UK director of the Jewish group Diaspora Alliance, said not including any Palestinian organisation in the proceedings shows a level of “anti-Palestinian racism”.”

“My book tells the story of how and why the IHRA definition came to be accepted within British universities. I consider the consequences of these adoptions for free speech and Palestinian activism. Writing it has led me to reflect on what antisemitism – which I think is better described as antisemitic racism – actually is and what we can do about it….Arriving at a more precise and practical understanding of antisemitic racism is crucial for combatting antisemitism as well as for promoting justice for Palestinians and Israelis.  Increasingly in the US and the UK, Palestinian and pro-Palestine activists find their energies consumed by defending themselves against allegations of antisemitism. Such attacks directly limit their ability to act for Palestinian human rights.”