Israeli bulldozers demolished Palestinian homes in the villages of
Mufaqara, Maghayir Al Abeed, Fakheit and Mirkez in Area C in June 2020
[photo credit: PASC]
That was the expectation of Ayalet Shaked, Israel’s Interior Minister after then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
had given a shrug and a wink answer to the question of whether or not
the Trump administration would give annexation the green light. It was,
Pompeo said, in late June of last year, a decision “for Israelis to
make.” The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had set 1 July as
the date for carrying out the annexation.
However, both Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner were showing signs of anxiety. Kushner was concerned that annexation would damage
his audacious “Peace to Prosperity” plan, effectively a land grab in
another guise. Trump was keen to achieve the so-called Abraham Accords
in the run-up to the presidential election in November.
When the UAE, via its ambassador to Washington took to the pages of an Israeli newspaper
to make the unambiguous point that annexation would scuttle his country
recognising Israel, Netanyahu, under pressure from Washington, backed
down.
Months later Shaked was still furious. In early March she addressed a meeting
of the hardline settlement organisation Regavim. She bemoaned that
though Israel had had the most sympathetic administration “it ever had
or will have” Netanyahu “missed the opportunity for sovereignty” as well
as the chance to legalise illegal settlement outposts. And she claimed
that Bennett, should he become prime minister, would not make the same
mistake: “he’ll do this even during a Biden administration." As it
turned out, Netanyahu was turfed and replaced by her political ally
Naftali Bennett. He, however, has yet to make good on Shaked’s
prediction.
So keen is the interior minister to acquire Area C she had at one
stage promised that once annexation had been achieved all residents,
both Jewish and Arab would be treated as equal citizens. There was,
however, one caveat. Only “after investigating how dangerous they are”
would Palestinians receive full Israeli citizenship. That - like the
building permits that are almost uniformly denied - would take a very
long time with full citizenship most unlikely to happen.
Meanwhile the drive to seize Area C continues apace. Which is where
the Union of Agricultural Work Committees come in. In its work the UAWC
is assisting Palestinian farmers and promoting sustainable agricultural
projects, in the process employing young Palestinians and giving them
hope that the land their families own and till will give them a
livelihood. It is a peaceful rebuttal to the violence they face from
settlers who destroy their crops while Israeli soldiers stand by.
In a press release
condemning the action UAWC said “Israel’s decision to designate the six
NGOs amounts to a declaration of war on Palestinian civil society at
large and is a flagrant violation of the values and principles of human
rights and humanitarian work.” Fuad Abu Saif, UAWC’s director put it
even more succinctly “Our work strengthens Palestinian presence there
(Area C), in an area it’s not wanted. This is why they’ve been going
after us for years.”
The farmers organisation and the others targeted by Gantz are
concerned that international funders will be influenced enough by the
Israelis to pull out. Abu Saif has no illusions about what Israel is up
to: “Israel is attempting to distort these organisations’ reputation
with our funders. If the Europeans end their funding, all these groups
will disappear. And it’s working.”
Indeed, the online investigative magazine +972
describes a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee meeting in
late 2020 attended by Ghassan Alyan, former head of the Civil
Administration that together with the IDF rules the occupied
territories. Alyan is quoted as saying:
“It is not just a struggle over land and enforcement, but also a
diplomatic struggle,” (adding) that when Bennett was Defence Minister in
2020, he met with ambassadors
and attachés from European countries and demanded that they halt their
funding to Palestinian organizations that operate in Area C.
“We warned everyone: we will not tolerate any international
project without Israeli approval… and we managed to decrease the number
of projects over the last two years,” Alyan said at the meeting. “There
were about 12 projects in 2019, when in 2015 there were approximately 75
conducted projects.”
But thus far the Europeans have remained unconvinced with the
evidence Shin Bet provided them with in May, designed to justify the
terrorist label. And after the designation, the EU issued a statement
that said in part “past allegations of the misuse of EU funds in
relation to certain Palestinian [Civil Society Organizations] CSO
partners have not been substantiated.”
The Biden administration has yet to comment, prompting 288 US-based civil and human rights organisation to write a letter
to his Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on the administration
to condemn the designation which the UAWC describes “as an attempt to
break the backbone of Palestinian civil society.” UK Foreign Secretary
Liz Truss has not commented.