المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
مقالات مشابهة
A call to put government ministers and Knesset members on the blacklist
Special Report
Ramallah / Nablus: The results of the recent 25th Knesset elections, which took place last November 2022, showed a steady shift among the Israelis towards the fascist and extreme right in the Israeli partisan scene that makes up the Knesset. The elections also highlighted the continued rise of the forces of the fascist right and their parties and revealed their openness to racism and ethnic cleansing, supported by extremist settlers and religious Zionist parties. Extremism, which was automatically reflected in the composition of the Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, with a rightwing party combination, who all joined in a government coalition that seeks to settle the conflict with the Palestinians by entrenching the occupation, expanding settlements, and meeting the demands, desires and interests of the extremist rightwing and religious parties.
Religious government and settlers:
Netanyahu heads what has become known within Israeli and even Western circles as the most extreme and fascist government in the history of Israel, considering his government’s composition of theocratic coalition on the one hand and religious fascism on the other hand. This government has relied on extremist religious and extreme rightwing parties, led by the Religious Zionist Party headed by the extremist Bezalel Smotrich, along with Otzmah Yehudit, led by the extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, and the Noam Party led by AviMaoz. The extremist religious extremism of the aforementioned three parties is evident in their positions on several issues, especially restricting the rights of minorities and imposing their influence on the judiciary. The rightwing positions of these parties are evident in their stands and actual practices towards Arabs and Palestinians, exacerbating the pace of conflict and confrontation to the peak, and turning it into a religious-ideological conflict.
They do so by imposing their extremist positions on the policy of the Netanyahu government, which has already begun taking and implementing all measures aimed at Judaizing Jerusalem and enabling extremist Zionist parties to practice their daily rituals and provocations intensively, at Al-Aqsa Mosque, to realize their alleged biblical fantasies and myths about building their alleged Temple. Additionally, the Netanyahu government gave the green light to the extremist settler parties to accelerate settlement in the West Bank, legalize settlement outposts that they call illegal, and return to the four settlements that the Israeli occupation evacuated, as part of the unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip in 2005, including four settlements in northern West Bank.
Netanyahu relies, in establishing his government to evade the corruption cases that haunt him, on two foundations, the hardline religious side, and the extreme fascist rightwing, which make him aligned with the ideas, positions and policies presented by these parties.
The settlers and Netanyahu government:
The official statistics, by many Israeli institutions and associations that monitor the partisan scene in Israel and the relationship of Zionist parties to settlement in the West Bank, especially by “KeremNafot” organization and “B’Tselem Foundation”, the recent 25th Knesset elections resulted in a significant increase in the number and percentage of settler representatives in the Israeli Knesset. The number of settlers, elected on the lists of the various Israeli parties, including the “Likud”, reached 14 members, is equivalent to 12% of the total members of the Knesset, which according to the law has 120 members, which makes unprecedented percentage that the parties did not reach before. This proportion was reflected in the composition of the government coalition and the policy of the Netanyahu government to the extent that it became called in Israel as the settler government. This is because of their influence over government decisions and policymaking, based on settlement expansion and intensification in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem. This, in addition to imposing the system of separation and ethnic cleansing in various aspects of daily life that concern Arabs and Palestinians, whether in the Palestinian interior, or in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Evidence of the settlers’ power over the Netanyahu government:
● The recent, Israeli Knesset final approval, of the budget of the settler government, led by the trio of Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir, showed that extremist settler parties and groups have already obtained the largest share and financial support so far from the governments of Israel. The budget allocated billions of shekels to advance settlement expansion plans in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and infrastructure projects for settlements and settlement roads, such as paving new roads and improving existing roads, including highways, to bypass Palestinian population centers in the occupied West Bank, which realizes an apartheid regime.
● Within the framework of indiscriminate efforts aimed at legalizing settlement outposts in the northern occupied West Bank, extremist Zionist parties and settler lobby groups succeeded in passing the approval of the Israeli Knesset to annul articles of the unilateral “disengagement law” from the Gaza Strip and 4 settlements in the northern West Bank, after 18 years of its approval. Accordingly, the Netanyahu government approved the immediate return of settlers to four settlements in northern West Bank, which are (Ganim, Kadim, Homesh, Sanur), which were dismantled in 2005. This shows a clear breach of the commitments of the Sharon government to the administration of former US President George Bush junior not to return to these settlements. This also constituted a breach of the commitments of the Netanyahu government to the US President Joe Biden administration after allowing the settlers to return to the Homesh settlement.
● The leader of “religious Zionism”, the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich headed the Coordinator of Government Activities for Civil Affairs in the West Bank, and expanded his powers. This is because Smotrich, as a minister in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, enjoys enforcement powers in restricting the Palestinian construction in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli security and civil control. He also enjoys and powers over settlement planning and construction, which will come under the control of the New Settlements Administration, as well as land allocation issues. Thus, he will be able, with his full authority over Area C, to purchase, survey and register land there as state land. He will also have authority to develop some land in the West Bank as natural reserves, which would provide vast lands for the settlement expansion that he aspires to, through which he seeks to bring half a million additional settlers to live in the West Bank.
● Settler parties and groups, their MPs and ministers in the Israeli government provided legal protection for settler terrorism and their extremist groups, especially groups like the Price Tag, the Hilltop Boys and the Elad settlement group. Rather, this went beyond participation of these MPs and ministers in terrorist attacks that settlers commit on the West Bank streets and cities against the Palestinian population, killing, terrorizing, displacing and destroying property. The destruction and arson attack on the town of Hawara, south of Nablus, is the clearest evidence of that, as the Minister of Finance of the Israeli occupation called for the burning of the town of Hawara, which actually happened.
● Under pressure from the extremist settlers led by the duo Ben Gvir and Smorch, the Israeli government provides all resources, especially strict security grip of the Temple groups and extremist Zionist parties to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque, and impose new facts on Al Aqsa sanctuary.
● Under pressure from settlers and heads of settlement councils (Yisha and its branches), the Israeli government is being pushed to expand its security activities and impose an iron fist grip on the West Bank and Gaza Strip regions and cities. The Israeli occupation government is providing additional budget to the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli army to deploy additional army battalions in the West Bank, and to redeploy checkpoints and roadblocks. This, in addition to military operations around Palestinian cities, launch daily attacks and military operations day and night, under the pretext of protecting settlers, their movement and daily expansionist settlement activities in the land, plains and mountains of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
● It should be noted that the provocative march organized by settler gangs to the settlement outpost (Avitar) on Mount Sabih in the land of the town of Beita, south of Nablus, was led by seven Israeli ministers and more than 20 Knesset members. These included the Minister of Finance, YitzelSmotrich, and the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister for National Tasks, Orit Strok, Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, Yitzhak Wasserlev, Minister for (Jewish) Heritage AmichaiEliyahu, Minister for Religious Services, Michael Malkili, and May Golan, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.
● The leaders of the Settlement Council “Yesha” are considered among the most prominent extremists, who lead the settlement activism in the West Bank. They also form a lobby in the Israeli government and among officials in the Israeli occupation state to pass their settlement plans, desires, and whims and to reach their greater goal of annexing the West Bank. They are considered the immediate mobilizers and instigators of the Zionist groups. The extremist settler ShlomoNe’eman is currently chairing the Yesha Council, along with the extremist Yossi Dagan, the head of the Settlement Council in the northern West Bank, who was the first to call for burning the town of Howara and erasing it from existence. He recently threatened to transfer his office and the offices of the leaders of the Council settlements to the Palestinian town of Hawara.
Israeli officials (settlers)Terrorism:
Before delving into the terrorist practices and actions and the extremist positions that Israeli settler officials in the Netanyahu government adopt and advocate for, against the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories, we review, below, a list of the names of settler Knesset members and ministers, who live in West Bank settlements:
● Extremist Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister of “National Security”, lives in the settlement of KiryatArba, south of Hebron, and is the leader of the “Jewish Power” party emanating from the extremist Zionist Kach movement.
● Minister BezlielSmotrich, Minister of Finance, lives in the Kedumim settlement in the Qalqilya governorate, and is the leader of the extremist “Religious Zionism” party.
● MK Limor Son HarMelech: a 43-year-old Knesset member for the Otzma Yehudit Party, “Religious Zionism”. She previously lived in the evacuated “Homesh” settlement in the northern West Bank, and currently in the ShaveiShomron settlement, west of Nablus, and plans to return to live there after the government’s decision to return to the evacuated “Homesh” settlement.
● MK Yehiel Moshe Tur Paz: Member of Knesset for the YeshAtid party. He is a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee and Education, Culture and Sports Committee. He lives in KfarEtzion settlement, south of Bethlehem.
● MK YisraelEichler: Member of the Knesset and head of the “United Torah Judaism” bloc in the Knesset. He is 67 years old and lives in the settlements of Jerusalem.
● MK Meir Brosh: a Knesset member for the “United Torah Judaism” party. He is 67 years old and lives in the Jerusalem settlements.
● MK Orit Struck: Member of the Knesset for the “Religious Zionism” party. She is one of the most prominent settlement leaders in the West Bank and lives in Hebron settlements.
● MK AviMaoz: Member of the Knesset for the “Religious Zionism” party. He is 66 years old and lives in the settlement neighbourhood in the heart of Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem.
● MK Yariv Levin: a member of the ruling Likud party and former speaker of the Knesset. He held many official positions, the most prominent of which was his election in the twenty-third session of the Knesset to head the Knesset. He lives in Modi’in settlement.
● MK Yehiel Moshe Trouber: Member of the Knesset for the “Glory to Israel” party, a social activist, and lives in the Ness Harim settlement, which is built on the depopulated village of Beit Atab, southwest of Jerusalem.
● MK Avichai Ben Eliyahu, a member of the Knesset for the Likud Party, and lives in the settlement of Rimonim, east of Ramallah.
● MK Simha Rothman: a member of Knesset for the “Religious Zionism” party, and lives in the settlement of EviHanachil, which is an illegal outpost (even according to the standards of the Israeli occupation), established on the land of the village of Kisan, east of Bethlehem.
● MK Ohad Tal: Member of Knesset for the “Religious Zionism” party and lives in Efrat settlement, south of Bethlehem.
After reviewing the most prominent Israeli officials, members of Knesset and ministers, who live in the settlements of the West Bank and Jerusalem, the report reveals below the most prominent extremist positions and the actual activism of the most extremist of these officials, in which they participated alongside terrorist settler organizations in the West Bank to terrorize the Palestinian population and impose displacement and ethnic cleansing, encouragement, strengthen and expand settlement:
1. Minister BezlielSmotrich, leader of the extremist rreligious Zionist” party, occupies the Ministry of Finance, and coordinator of the Israeli government’s activities for civil affairs in the West Bank with broad powers. He lives in the Kedumim settlement in the Qalqilya governorate in a house he built contrary to even the occupation laws outside the aforementioned settlement. He has a religious background. Extreme radicalism, supports ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, calls for expanding settlements in the West Bank, and opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Among his racist and extremist positions:
As a Knesset member, he had the key role in enacting Israeli legislation to legitimize the annexation of Palestinian lands, as well as a law banning boycott activists from visiting Israel.
– “He called for the erasure of the town of Hawara from existence: In the events of the town of Hawara, and the settlers’ terror that affected people, trees, and all the property of the Palestinian residents of the town by burning and destruction, Smotrich had the most prominent role in inciting and encouraging the extremist settlers for their criminal actions.
– He denies the existence of the Palestinian people and claims that this is nothing but an invention that is less than a hundred years old. During his participation in an evening event, in Paris, on the twentieth of last March, to honor Jacques Kupfer, one of the staunchest radical Zionist academics and the former head of the Likud Party in France, Smotrich attacked the Palestinian people, claiming that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people and that this is just an invention that is less than a hundred years old.
– Immediately after assuming the position of Minister of Finance, Smotrich addressed the Israeli authorities and institutions concerned with preparing to move half a million settlers into settling in the West Bank settlements, and that the Ministry of Finance would provide the necessary funds for that.
2. Minister Itamar Ben Gvir: Leader of the far-right “Jewish Power” party, he assumes the Ministry of Homeland Security, with broad powers that include the Border Police Department in the occupied West Bank, and worked as a media advisor to the extremist former Knesset member, Michael Ben Ari, who is active in the Kach terrorist movement. He is a spokesman for the Jewish National Front movement, and was a partisan activist in the terrorist Kach movement, and was a staunch believer in its extremist ideas on ethnic cleansing and displacement of Arabs and Palestinians. He lives in the KiryatArba’ settlement in downtown and, along with the residents of this settlement, he commits daily bullying and abuse against the Palestinian residents of the city. Among his racist and extremist positions:
– Ben Gvir, who drew his extremist ideas from the school of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the fascist “Kach” movement, believes in the idea that the Arabs in Palestine are enemies that must be expelled through violence and it is not acceptable to coexist with them, and that all the Jews of the world should immigrate to Palestine.
– After the massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, Ben Gvir appeared on various Hebrew media, disguised as the murderous rabbi Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the massacre, announcing his support and his influence on the murderous rabbi by saying: “He is my hero and my role model.”
– When the Israeli occupation army killed the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the Jenin refugee camp, Itamar Ben Gvir rushed to defend the army’s action, and told the media: “When terrorists shoot at our soldiers in Jenin, they have to shoot back with full force even if there are journalists from Al Jazeera are deliberately standing in the middle of the battle and disturbing the soldiers.
– Ben Gvir leads a relentless campaign to harass Palestinian prisoners in the occupation prisons, and lobbies for the enactment of legislations and laws in the Israeli Knesset, to impose strict restrictions on the lives of prisoners in the Israeli prisons, and to deprive them of their most basic rights that were guaranteed to them in accordance with all the charters of human rights and the rights of prisoners, as enshrined in the IV Geneva Convention.
– He continuously repeats his media attacks and racist statements against the Palestinians, and echoes, with his ideas and positions, those of the extremist Smotrich, as Ben Gvir claims that there is no such thing as the State of Palestine, nor a self-governing authority, and refuses that the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have any authority that represents them. He also refuses to include them in the Israeli occupation state.
– Following the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the hands of a Zionist extremist, Ben Gvir hurried to organize and lead a mass campaign among Israeli extremists to release the killer.
– As a lawyer, Ben Gvir has been defending activists of extremist Zionist groups, such as “Hill Youths” and “Price Tag groups” who are involved in building illegal settlements and committing crimes against the Palestinian population. In 2006, he defended two extremist settlers who were accused of participating in an Arson incident in the Palestinian village of Duma, killing a couple and their child.
– Ben Gvir leads the continuous incursions of extremist religious groups into Al-Aqsa Mosque, denies the existence of any guardianship over Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, and seeks to establish new facts at Al-Aqsa Mosque to allow extremist religious Jewish groups to enter the mosque and practice their biblical rituals, in a flagrant defiance of the feelings and provocation of millions of Muslims in the world.
3. Lemur Son HarMelech: Her extreme positions include:
– LimorMelech led a frantic campaign within the Israeli Knesset and the Zionist parties to pass the “Prisoner Execution Law,” and she achieved what she wanted, as the Knesset approved the preliminary reading of the law, describing it as “a fair and moral law.”
– She led media and legal campaigns within the Knesset and the Zionist parties to cancel the disengagement law and return to the four evacuated settlements in the northern West Bank.
– An extremist settlement activist, who seeks within her party and other Zionist parties to legitimize illegal outposts according to the laws of occupation.
Intensifying action to blacklist the settler terrorists, ministers and Knesset members,
in a way similar to the blacklist published by the United Nations Human Rights Council in February 2020, which included 112 companies with commercial activities in Israeli settlements established on the occupied Palestinian territories, and the consequent opening of new horizons for holding these companies accountable and prosecuting them before international courts, and expanding boycott campaigns. It has become necessary and urgent to intensify action and efforts to complete the exclusion of Israeli settlement and its leaders in the West Bank. This requires initiating an international struggle similar to that which led the UN Human Rights Council to adopt that black list of commercial companies in the Israeli settlements. It also requires a struggle based on close cooperation with human rights institutions, international legal organizations, solidarity and boycott committees, CSOs, friendly parties and parliamentarians in European and Western countries.
In parallel with drying up the settlement funding sources, by activating efforts targeting the corporates on the blacklist of commercial companies in the settlements, and prosecuting them in international and even local courts in European countries, and demanding these companies to close their headquarters and branches and end their commercial and investment activities in the settlements, as well as demanding compensation for their exploitation of the Palestinian resources and land, in parallel, work must be done to dry up the sources of settler terrorism, reference here is to the settler leaders and their figures, who are the primary instigators of settlement expansion, and settler terrorism against the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.
The National Bureau for Boycott Affairs and Land Defense seeks to place its updated database, which includes settler leaders and figures, and their continuous terror against the Palestinian population, within the reach of the official and civil authorities in various Western, Arab and African countries, and to provide them with all the necessary information, including documented statistics on settlement, evidence of settlers terror leaders, especially their leaders and figures, who hold official positions in the government of the Israeli occupation state. This is to shed light on the dark and fascist side of these settler officials, in order to persuade international and human rights organizations, especially the Human Rights Council, to develop a black list of the names of these Israeli officials, to prosecute them, and to impose boycott and total isolation on their foreign movement outside their state, to abort their settlement projects, and curtail their role in feeding the spirit of hatred, fascism, and terror against the Palestinian population.
Under international law, and in accordance with all relevant international resolutions, the most recent of which is the UNSCR No. 2334, the Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories is considered illegal, and the crime of Israeli settlement, as per the international law, is considered one of the continuing crimes against the Palestinian people as long as the settlements remain on the occupied Palestinian territories. Accordingly, the leading countries in the international community, first and foremost among them the European countries, must morally and ethically abide by their principled positions that they take within the international consensus to counter the Israeli settlement, its consequences and effects, and in the forefront of which is holding the settler figures and leaders accountable, especially those who hold official positions in the Israeli occupation state.
The international law provides for the possibility of resorting to the International Criminal Court, considering Israeli settlement as a war crime that falls within the crimes against humanity that are punishable by international law, according to the Rome Statute, especially its fifth article, where the Rome Statute detailed and defined in its seventh article, paragraph (d) that “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” falls under the heading of Crimes against Humanity, and this is the core of the Israeli settlement, the deportation and forced displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population from their land and the replacing them with herds of settlers. Examples of this are wide and numerous, starting from the displacement operations in occupied Jerusalem, through the Khan Al-Ahmar, Ain Samia, MasaferYatta and others.
The steps that UN member states can take to punish the settler figures and leaders, can never be considered a violation of international law, or a harm to their common interests. On the contrary, this can rather reflect a moral and ethical commitment of these states to respect international law, their positions and moral commitment to the human rights principles. In addition, this can demonstrate respect for the positions of their peoples and civil organizations that reject the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its settlers. It can also distance these countries from the consequences of fascism, right-wing and extremist religious tendencies that settler leaders are trying to spread and circulate not only among settlers, but also among other peoples, especially European Western ones, specifically with regard to their extremist settler religious ideas that contradict principles of democracy and human rights.
How can settler figures, including ministers and Knesset members, be punished?
❖ Urging the UN Human Rights Council to develop a blacklist of names of settler leaders and figures from various Zionist parties, and to publish that list.
❖ Documenting and exposing the extremist practices, actions and statements of settler leaders, and disseminating them in the media in various languages, accompanied, including pictures and videos that condemn them.
❖ Imposing a comprehensive boycott and isolation on them, especially leaders who hold official positions in the Israeli occupation government, Knesset members and officials in Israeli regime.
❖ Refusing to receive them as part of official visits they make to countries, and imposing a complete media boycott to their movements in their visits.
❖ Acting to revoke and strip European nationalities held by some Israeli settler leaders.
❖ Filing lawsuits in European courts and the International Criminal Court against the settler leaders, and prosecuting them in every country they visit, to punish and pressure them into cancelling their official and personal visits.
The National Bureau for Boycott Affairs and Land Defense / P L O
Nablus / Ramallah
5/6/2023
