Bulletin février mars 2025 West Bank, massacre and annexation in perspective
Land capture in Massafer Yatta
In late February, the occupation army issued a military order announcing its intention to seize 8,438 square meters of land belonging to residents of Masafer Yatta, near the illegal settlement of Carmel.
Masafer Yatta Village Council head Nidhal Yunis stated that the Israeli occupation intends to appropriate the land located at the main entrance to all areas, villages, and communities in Masafer Yatta and its pastures. Local residents fear that the occupation's control over this area will tighten the siege on their villages, restrict their movement, and increase their daily suffering.
Masafer Yatta is an area located in the southern hills of Hebron province, home to 12 Palestinian villages with a total population of approximately 2,800. The area covers an estimated 35,000 dunums (35 square kilometers) of land, where Palestinian farming communities have lived for generations. The occupation army declared Firing Zone 918 in the early 1980s to dispossess Palestinians of their homes and reinforce Jewish settlements in the area. Since this declaration, residents have lived under the daily threat of demolitions, evictions, and dispossession. Families in Masafer Yatta are denied access to their land, roads, water sources, schools, medical services, and hospitals. Adding to this is the almost daily violence of settlers in the area. But, as the film "No other land" illustrates, the resistance of the inhabitants is stubborn and admirable; they often rebuild at night the houses destroyed by bulldozers during the day.
Destruction and ethnic cleansing
Israeli bulldozers demolished large areas of the now-virtually empty Jenin refugee camp on February 25 and appeared to be digging wide roads through its alleyways, repeating tactics already employed in Gaza as troops prepare for a long stay.
At least 40,000 Palestinians have fled their homes in Jenin and the neighboring town of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank since Israel began its operation, just one day after agreeing to a truce in Gaza. What is happening in Jenin is mirroring what happened in Jabalya. At least 12 bulldozers are working to demolish homes and infrastructure in the camp, a crowded community housing the descendants of Palestinians ethnically cleansed in the 1948 Nakba War, which marked the creation of the State of Israel.
The month-long operation in the northern West Bank is one of the largest since the Palestinian uprising of the Second Intifada more than 20 years ago. It involves several brigades of Israeli soldiers supported by drones, helicopters and, for the first time in decades, heavy battle tanks.
Michael Milshtein, a former military intelligence official who heads the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, said: " I don't know what the overall strategy is, but there is no doubt that such a move has never been undertaken in the past. " Yet it is clear that the Zionist entity's intention is to permanently and widely displace the Palestinian population by destroying homes and making their stay impossible.
" Israel wants to erase the camps and their memory, morally and financially. It wants to erase the name of the refugees from the people's memory," said Hassan al-Katib, 85, who lived in the Jenin camp with 20 children and grandchildren before abandoning his home and all his belongings during the Israeli operation. The Zionists also ordered UNRWA to cease its activities in Jenin.
A tank platoon was also deployed by Israel, entering the city on Sunday 23rd through the western entrance of the Jenin camp. Teams of army engineers could be seen preparing for a long-term stay, bringing water tanks and generators into a special area of nearly one hectare.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the operation in the northern West Bank appeared to be repeating tactics used in Gaza, where Israeli troops systematically displaced thousands of Palestinians as they moved within the enclave. " We demand that the American administration compel the occupation state to immediately end its aggression against West Bank cities ," he said. Yet, as we know, special forces from the same Palestinian Authority began the assault on Jenin before the occupation army intervened. Moreover, while the resistance in the West Bank is less armed than in Gaza, the same Palestinian Authority is preventing deliveries. The crocodile tears of the spokesmen will not change the fact that the leaders in Ramallah are servants of the Zionist entity.
Forty days of military aggression in Tulkarem
For more than 40 days now, the Israeli army has been attacking the cities, towns, villages, and refugee camps of the Tulkarem governorate as part of its Operation Iron Wall. 42 days of murder and massive and systematic destruction, with the main targets being the city's two refugee camps: Tulkarem and Nour Shams.
Israeli troops emptied these camps of a large portion of their inhabitants. The figures cited are around 5,000 in Nur Shams and 12,000 in Tulkarm. The soldiers expelled the residents using several methods. First, daily attacks, bombings, and the systematic destruction of the camps' life-support infrastructure (water, electricity, and roads) made living conditions in the city's refugee camps extremely difficult. For those who chose to stay, the soldiers emptied homes one by one, expelled residents, and ransacked their homes. The Israeli army notably set up headquarters on Nablus Street, connecting the Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps. It took possession of numerous buildings in the camps and in the city. Some serve as barracks, while others are firing positions for Israeli snipers. Military squads parade through the camps daily.
Despite extremely difficult living conditions, 14 Palestinians killed, immense destruction, and dozens injured, some attempted to return to their homes to salvage personal belongings and souvenirs from the rubble. Others resettled in their destroyed homes.
One goal: annex the West Bank and get rid of the Palestinians
The Zionists have redeployed some of their troops since the truce and are attempting to implement the annexation of the West Bank. Having not experienced the isolation of Gaza, having lived and continue to live through the constant controls, harassment, and assassinations of the occupying army, the Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank are less armed and probably less organized than those in Gaza. They are nevertheless present and resisting, particularly in the Jenin camp. The role of the Palestinian Authority objectively facilitates the occupiers' task. After the genocide in Gaza, they will have no qualms about organizing one in the West Bank.
In France, repression and major ideological maneuvers
The meaning of the ban on the “Palestine will win” collective
By a decree of the Council of Ministers on March 9, 2022, the then Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, declared the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (CPV). Among the reasons given were, for example, CPV's positions against Zionist ideology and its denunciation of the apartheid regime imposed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people as a whole.
The Collectif Palestine Vaincra had filed an interim relief application requesting the suspension of this dissolution decree. The Council of State ruled in favor of suspending the dissolution decree but had yet to rule on the merits. The Council of State has just issued its judgment, rejecting the CPV's request to annul the dissolution decree. The dissolution is thus confirmed. This is a further attack on the Palestine solidarity movement.
The sole reason given for the dismissal of the CPV's appeal was insufficient moderation of comments posted by Internet users following CPV's publications on social media. Recourse to dissolution for insufficient moderation of comments made by third parties appears to be a particularly disproportionate and profoundly unfair sanction. This is one of the consequences of the law "reinforcing the principles of the Republic" of August 24, 2021. It is important to note that the Council of State did not uphold any other grounds for dissolution put forward by the Minister of the Interior, nor any of the grounds attempted by the civil parties.
The Council of State considers that the CPV's positions in support of Palestinian political parties classified as "terrorist" by the European Union " cannot, in this case, be regarded as actions intended to provoke acts of terrorism ." The Council of State also notes that " the militant anti-Zionism of the group does not lead it to make anti-Semitic remarks itself ," thus establishing a very clear distinction between anti-Zionism, even virulent, and anti-Semitism.
Defenders of Palestine are the target of the special forces of repression of the bourgeois state in France, namely the police and the justice system. Among them, activists or organizations that argue about the colonial struggle and the impossibility of maintaining the State of Israel for anyone who wants peace are the main victims of repression, from Abdel from Montpellier to Amira Zaiter from Nice, including Jean-Paul Delescaut and "Palestine Vaincra". The proponents of "shared wrongs" are often criticized, but not condemned or banned. Those who shed light on the reality of the situation (the genocide) are repressed, but especially on the reality of the nature of the anti-Semitic explosion that our country has been experiencing since October 7, 2023 (1,570 acts with complaints filed last year, or more than four per day). This colonial nature obviously renders the "two-state solution" obsolete.
The Zionist ideologues of the "left" are in full swing
A group of intellectuals calling themselves "French Jews […] with diverse political sensitivities, but all from the broad family of the left " wrote an op-ed in the newspaper "Le Monde," which is a veritable reversal of the situation. While, as we have illustrated above, it is indeed the supporters of the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle who are repressed in this country, here are our kind souls declaring: " We are distraught to see our friends and families afraid for their children when they are insulted or threatened at school. Stunned to see that many no longer dare to express themselves during discussions with their colleagues, or even resort to hiding their Jewishness in their workplace. Faced with the swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti daubed on our windows or mailboxes, we have encountered only silence, denial, or indifference from the extreme left. " Among the signatories are the usual pseudo-intellectual endorsements of the social democrats, Christine Angot, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Michel Hazanavicius, Ariane Mnouchkine, Pierre Nora, Annette Wieviorka, and Elsa Zylberstein. But it is with great sadness that we also find Luc Boltanski, author of the essay "Les Cadres," much appreciated by Marxists, Laurent Heynemann, the director of "La Question," a film adapted from the work of Henri Alleg, and Agnès Jaoui, who fiercely defended the intermittent workers of the entertainment industry. Sadness, because this text is profoundly intellectually dishonest. We give credence to the speeches of Darmanin and then Retailleau by evoking " the anti-Semitic explosion that our country has been going through since October 7, 2023 (1,570 acts with complaints filed last year, or more than four per day) " by obscuring the element that makes the anti-Semitic act the judicial sanction and not the filing of a complaint, by also obscuring that a good part of these complaints target acts or words that are not anti-Semitic, but critical of the Zionist entity, by therefore obscuring the intellectual and judicial terror that is falling on anti-colonialist activists.
But that's not the worst of it. It contains unbearable attacks on anti-Zionist Jews: " The word Zionist has become an insult. Only anti-Zionist Jews are now forgiven for being Jewish. A bit like in medieval Europe, where Jews were asked to renounce their faith to be accepted. " So, if anti-Zionist Jews had renounced their faith, it would not be possible to be Jewish and anti-Zionist!
Above all, the text is a defense and illustration of the State of Israel and colonization: " The post-war period saw many borders redrawn, in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Israel was part of this vast movement and was born within international legality, on a territory smaller than Brittany. This plot of land was the only refuge for Holocaust survivors and refugees from Arab countries who hoped, by joining the approximately 500,000 Jews who already lived there, to finally build a future without threat or pogrom. To delegitimize Israel is to deny these refugees and their descendants the right to live. " Not a word about those who lived and still live on what these people contemptuously call a plot of land.
There is, of course, the usual "Jews equal Israel" equating: " But one cannot help but wonder whether making Israel a pariah state is not the contemporary substitute for the familiar and ancient ostracism of Jews as a pariah people. " Or again, " Conflating Israel with its illegal settlements is making Jews, all Jews , once again, the great culprits of history. "
And everything is in keeping with this: the obligatory criticism of Hamas and its so-called rule in Gaza, its exterminatory intentions, but not those of Zionism. Thus, the text only mentions " Trumpist threats of ethnic cleansing ," as if the cleansing had not already begun and turned into genocide. The word "genocide" is also completely absent from this text, even to criticize it. The words "Palestine" or "Palestinian" do not appear either, which is an obvious desire to contribute to their erasure. This text, behind its desire to hide the fact that the problem with being a Zionist Jew is not "Jewish," but "Zionist," is clearly a support for colonialism, the replacement of one people by another, the dispossession of the Palestinians, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. And it uses the usual subterfuge of Zionist leaders: defending the occupier by portraying them as victims.
It is also a sign of the concern of Zionist intellectuals about the ever-increasing global discredit of Israel, and about the mobilization of workers and peoples in support of the Palestinians and their resistance.
In conclusion
For the Revolutionary Communist Party, what matters is the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people and the active solidarity of the workers of the world. We must therefore continue to demand the complete withdrawal of the occupying and colonizing forces from Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. But this is not enough.
A just peace means the dismantling of settlements, the return of refugees, and an independent Palestinian state. The existence of a colonial state prevents such a peace. The workers of Israel cannot be free if they do not break with Zionism and continue to find themselves objectively and actively in the camp of the colonizers. Solidarity with Palestine cannot be satisfied with general phrases about peace. It requires a state where all inhabitants enjoy the same rights and can live together, regardless of their origin—in this case, a democratic Palestinian state. Likewise, the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people does not require compassion, but real political support and actions of internationalist solidarity. And for France, where revolutionaries, as elsewhere, must fight their capitalists, this begins with the political struggle against French imperialism's support for the Zionist colonial entity.
The Revolutionary Communist Party, after the truce and the continuation of the massacre in the West Bank, supports more than ever the fundamental demands of the Palestinian national liberation movement: a complete end to Zionist military aggression, the right of return for refugees, and the formation of a Palestinian state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine.