More settlements!
Israel is now up with a new mischief and that is to further alter the demographic mosaic of the dispossessed Palestinians. According to reports in the media, a cluster of Israeli settlers mull encroaching more lands in the Palestinian Authority-administered area of the occupied West Bank. This attempt is a clear violation of the 1995 Oslo-II Accord that grants the stateless community governing rights on their inhabited territories. Moreover, this unilateral move amounts to a de facto annexation of the West Bank. It also makes a mockery of the so-called Gaza Peace Plan which explicitly restricts Israel from taking administrative actions that alter the regional status quo.
The plan to seize 100 strategic locations in the West Bank is, in fact, a continuation of the illegal settlements policy that has displaced millions of Palestinians since 1967. The irony remains that Israel faces no tangible consequences, despite operating outside UNSC resolutions and international law. That's because the realpolitik in the Middle East is unequivocally titled in favour of the Jewish state, and the patronage it enjoys from the US goes on to confirm its hegemony. The two years of war in Gaza which has witnessed 70,000 Palestinians killed and a million more displaced represents an unparalleled modern-day tragedy. This new illegal settlement plan is likely to derail the emerging consensus between the stakeholders who want to broker a thaw between Hamas and Israel. It could eventually force the politico-militia to relaunch its resistance movement.
The incumbent right-wing Israeli dispensation is a threat to peace and security of the region, and beyond. Its jingoism led to a 40-day war with Iran, torpedoing global geo-economics, and pushing the international community to the brink of a broader global conflict. Even now it is bent upon derailing the peace deal between Iran and the US through its expeditions over Lebanon almost daily. This confirms a criminal mindset at work, and one that is pro-Lebensraum. The settlers must come under the hammer and Israel must be tamed from going over the brink yet again.