Thursday, March 28, 2024

Guardian reports the latest on U.S. policy toward the Israeli incursion into Gaza.

Here and here. Items are clear, the major message being Monday the U.S. abstained on a Security Council resolution, having previously used a veto multiple times. Moreover, the starvation in Gaza seems worsening, with delay of aid from outside, ready at the border. Perhaps U.S. policy is to send a warning of being hesitant to continue to accept pariah status on behalf of the current Israeli government's clear willingness to be a pariah nation in the eyes of the world. One Israeli visit to the U.S. occured; Netanyahu having unilaterally cancelled another. Patience of our own government seems to be wearing thin.

Perhaps Crabgrass has been reading the wrong online U.S. media reporting, but the Security Council vote seems to have gotten insufficient mainstream media coverage. Reasons for that; (given coverage of Ronna McDaniel's saga and Trump's decision to sell overpriced bibles on the eve of his hush money trial); seem to suggest editorial management of news reporting, picking and choosing where the most fundamental decision of editorial intent is to decline publishing on some events while covering others at length.

UPDATE: Recent reporting on ongoing illegal settlement incursions into the occupied territory, from earlier this month, includes this, this, this and this. Also, this month there has been AP coverage. AJ and Reuters most recently, and BBC earlier this month. Even with major attention on Gaza, other activity matters. BBC re beachfront, three days ago - land lust unbridled.

From yesterday, "How Israeli settler outposts in the West Bank are surging amid the Gaza war":

In the last five months of Israel’s ferocious assault on Gaza, Jewish settlers have been intensifying the illegal construction of outposts in the occupied West Bank, whether by force, threat, or military decree.

Between October and January, settlers in the Palestinian territory built at least 15 outposts and 18 roads that only Jewish Israelis are permitted to use, along with hundreds of meters of fences and multiple roadblocks.

Outposts consist of makeshift encampments built without government approval by members of Israel's settler movement seeking to enforce an Israeli presence on occupied Palestinian land. Located in Area C of the West Bank - approximately 60 percent of the territory under full Israeli control - they are illegal under both international and Israeli law.

However, they are often authorised retroactively by Israeli courts as settlements.

In a January report, Peace Now, an Israeli group monitoring settlement developments, documented an unparalleled rise in settlement activities in the aftermath of the war in Gaza. Settlers have been pushing their presence across the West Bank by establishing or re-establishing outposts beyond areas near existing settlements, paving roads cutting through private Palestinian land, and erecting barriers along them.

This increasing outpost and road construction activity has effectively translated to the annexation of large swathes of Palestinian-owned land and restrictions on Palestinian movement in a clear move to expel Palestinians from the surroundings.

Exploiting the ongoing military aggression in Gaza, Israeli settlers have persisted in taking control of sizeable parts of Area C, thus further fragmenting the West Bank and marginalising the Palestinian presence.

“In times of war, settlers take advantage of the situation to start building illegal outposts,” Mauricio Lapchik, Peace Now’s director of external relations, told The New Arab, observing that his organisation reported a similar surge in outposts during the years of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

These actions have been accompanied by an escalation of settler violence since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on 7 October, with assaults and harassment against Palestinian residents and the destruction of their property occurring almost daily, often without army or police intervention.

That report is by an Arab outlet, but it cites an Israeli group's January item which undeniably suggests things are moving against Palestinians away and apart from those under siege in Gaza. Opportunists seize opportunities, and it's been so over all recorded history. This seems no different, and arguably should be curbed.