Netanyahu Pivots to Escalating Attacks on West Bank

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International Middle East Media Center reports: “Israeli Forces Kill 9 Palestinians, Injure 40, in Jenin.” Middle East Eye reports: “Israeli forces blocked ambulances responding to shooting victims in Jenin raid, hospital director says.” 

AntiWar.com reports: “Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who threatened his Religious Zionism party would quit the government if the genocidal war doesn’t resume in Gaza, said the West Bank offensive was part of a deal he made with Netanyahu. ‘This is part of the war goals that were added to the cabinet’s demand for Religious Zionism on Friday,’ he wrote on X.”

The Times of Israel reports: “Pro-Israel megadonor Miriam Adelson takes center stage at Trump’s inauguration.” Trump says he’s “not confident” Gaza ceasefire will hold. 

In August, Trump said Israel is a “tiny spot” on the map and questioned if there is a “way of getting more.” In November, Haaretz reported: “Smotrich Says Israel Is ‘A Step Away’ From Annexing West Bank After Trump’s Election Victory.” 

Last week, Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said sanctions on violent Israeli settlers were to be lifted and that was done on Monday. On Tuesday, Al Jazeera reported Israeli settlers attacked villages on the West Bank under the Israeli army’s protection

MAZIN QUMSIYEH, mazin@qumsiyeh.org, Skype: mbqumsiyeh

Qumsiyeh is a professor at Bethlehem University. His books include Sharing the Land of Canaan. He is founding director of the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability. Qumsiyeh said that with the pause in Gaza, Netanyahu has “come to us in the West Bank. His government cannot climb down trees, they merely swing to another tree.

    “The colonial mentality is alive and well in the rhetoric of the U.S. president (Manifest Destiny, frontiers, pioneers). He is playing with deadly force using U.S. weapons in Gaza and in Jenin and other frontiers of an expanding U.S./Israeli empire. …”

ANNELLE SHELINE, annelle@quincyinst.org@AnnelleSheline

    Research fellow for the Middle East at the Quincy Institute, Sheline resigned from the State Department over Biden’s “unconscionable” Gaza policy. She said today: “It seems clear that Netanyahu only agreed to the nominal ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for a greenlight from Trump to escalate violence in the West Bank. When Trump was elected, Finance Minister Smotrich told his staff to prepare to annex the West Bank. American officials from Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik to even former President Bill Clinton have expressed support for the extreme right-wing Zionist position that Israel has a Biblical right to the West Bank. Yet if Israel annexed the West Bank,” this would tank Trump’s stated plans “for Israeli-Saudi normalization. …”