Forcible Transfer is a War Crime: West Bank Pogroms are Working

Occupied Thoughts

featuring Kareem Jubran (B’Tselem) & Sarit Michaeli (B’Tselem) with Dr. Yara Asi (FMEP). Forcible transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank is a reality. The Israeli government, its security forces, and Israeli settlers are actively targeting Palestinian communities through a growing matrix of tools geared towards making their lives so economically untenable, functionally unbearable, and fundamentally unsafe that they are compelled to abandon their homes and lands, disperse their communities, and give up their means of earning their livelihoods. Israel’s long-used methods include forbidding Palestinians from legally building homes and other structures, preventing access to infrastructure, including electricity, water, and roads, and ongoing demolitions in 60% of the West Bank. Targeted violence carried out by settlers, and tolerated if not actively supported by Israeli security forces -- - including harassment, threats, destruction of property, and outright terrorism in the formed of armed, lethal attacks -- has been used to suppress and threaten Palestinian life in the West Bank – and it has been accelerating in frequency and brazenness under the new Israeli government. Together, these factors have already led to the displacement of multiple Palestinian shepherding communities in the West Bank. Today, more communities are in danger, as Israel seeks to remove Palestinians in key areas across the West Bank in order to take over their land. In this briefing, we describe these communities and discuss the official and unofficial tools Israel used to displace them and how this oppression amounts to the war crime of forcible transfer. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.