Israeli writer Gideon Levy began his article in Haaretz by describing the miserable situation in the West Bank, with Israel tearing it apart, oppressing the Palestinians, killing them and dragging them mercilessly, describing it as the most difficult period the Palestinians have witnessed since 2002.
Tens of thousands of acres have been confiscated and stolen in the past 11 months; there is hardly a hill in the West Bank without an Israeli flag or a settlement outpost that will one day become a city. The roadblocks are back in full force. You can’t move from one place to another in the West Bank without encountering them and waiting there, humiliated for hours. You can’t plan anything in a reality where at least 150,000 people have lost their livelihoods, after jobs in Israel were completely closed to them. Everyone has been punished since the October 7 attack. Eleven months without pay leaves its mark.
Monsters Awaken
All of this, he said, had “roused the beasts from their slumber” and brought back suicide bombers. He said he had visited Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Hebron in the West Bank in recent weeks. He said that although the West Bank played no role in the October 7, 2023 attack, it had since awakened, with its three million Palestinians, to a new reality—not because the previous one was humane or legitimate—that was filled with a passion for revenge and opportunity, and was marked by the merciless pressure of the Israeli boot on the West Bank’s neck.
Levy expressed his surprise at the explanation given by Israeli analysts for the violent Palestinian resistance raising its head in the West Bank, describing it as surprising, as they attribute it to “Iranian money,” saying that they explain everything with the Iranian octopus, and he mocked that by saying, “The Palestinians are ready to commit suicide to get some money.”
Intense conflict is coming
He continued commenting on what the Israeli analysts are talking about, saying, “How easy it is to attribute everything to Iran. The Israelis love to do that. There is a devil, and he is Iranian, and he is responsible for everything.”
He stressed that an intense conflict would be a possible and understandable development given what had happened in the West Bank and Gaza over the past 11 months, adding that the only surprise was that it had not happened in the past months.
He pointed out that what was permissible in terms of killing and humiliation in Gaza is now permissible in the West Bank. Israeli soldiers have internalized this fact, and their behavior toward Palestinians has changed accordingly. They say, “If we are not in Gaza, at least let us act as if we were there.” Ask any Palestinian what they have been through. There has never been a greater sense of despair than now.
Gideon Levy concluded his article by asking: After all this, do you expect there to be no “terrorism”?
