The West bank must be prevented from igniting

As the Israeli army expands the ground operation in Gaza, pushes back Hezbollah attacks in the north, and intercepts missiles launched by the Houthis from over Eilat, it turns out that there are Israelis who want to add another arena to the battle. Security officials closely follow what is happening in the West Bank, observing a planned effort by settlers to seize land and expel Palestinians (for example from the Susya area, south of Mount Hebron), and spread panic and fear, by uprooting hundreds of olive trees, burning property, beatings, and shooting... Fire (Amos Harel, Haaretz, 11/1/2023).

At a time when Israel's allies around the world are mobilizing and standing by its side, and the United States is sending aircraft carriers and arming Israel, in an attempt to prevent a complete conflagration, and to deter hostile parties in the region from attacking Israel, led by Iran; At a time when the entire Western world is trying to act responsibly to curb the deterioration into a regional war; Extremist parties operate in Israel in a way that could lead to war. The government does not restrain them, but rather pampers them with hundreds of millions of shekels - money that the government intends to transfer to Settlement Minister Orit Struck, which will be transferred to the Settlement and Settlements Unit.

Settlers take advantage of the war to establish new settlement outposts, build roads for the settlements and connect them to the relatively new outposts and pastoral farms. Part of these roads is being built by the Israeli army.

Responsible leadership would have ordered the army to immediately stop these actions, and to remove from the territories those trying to push Israel into an additional war, with all that this would mean in terms of diversion of resources and forces. But the word responsibility seems strange to this government composed of extremists. When the minister responsible for the Civil Administration, Bezalel Smotrich, is a settler and an apartheid, it is not surprising that the Civil Administration does not provide adequate reports on what is happening.

Any prime minister committed to the integrity of the State of Israel would have expelled the Kahanists and Messianic apartheid from his government, such as Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir and their companions, and made clear to the settlers that Israel would not tolerate them. But Benjamin Netanyahu's government chose to do the opposite, and yesterday appointed Knesset member Nesvi Skukhot, from the "Religious Zionism" party, as head of the subcommittee of the Security and Defense Committee, which is concerned with West Bank affairs. This is like appointing an arsonist as head of the fire department.

If the government does not immediately respond forcefully to the actions of settlers in the territories, it will have witnessed another catastrophe that will be added to its list of shortcomings.