Israeli colonial projects in West Bank and Jerusalem

Israel has its roots in a colonial project that has modernized its face but continues to subject Palestinians to military occupation, land dispossession and unequal rights. 72 years after its establishment, the wounds of the Nakba are still open, as Israel prohibits over five million refugees the right of return - while guaranteeing citizenship to anyone who can demonstrate Jewish ancestry. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, the forced displacement of Palestinians amounts to ethnic cleansing. “The tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story — hard to understand and even harder to solve”, affirms Pappe in the 2015 book On Palestine, co-written with American scholar Noam Chomsky. The treaties partitioned the West Bank into three areas: Area A under Palestinian Authority (PA) control, Area B under joint Israeli-Palestinian administration, and area C, run by Israel. The accords, which should have paved the way for the creation of a Palestinian state, instead led to increased Israeli presence in the territory through the expansion of Zionist settlements.  Scholar Edward Said has pointed out that Palestinian leaders had effectively given up the right to self-determination in most of the West Bank’s territory in exchange for Israel’s acknowledgement of the PA, and referred to the agreement as “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles”. Oslo’s failure is particularly evident in area C, a scarcely populated district comprising more than 60% of the West Bank and most of the territory’s natural resources, where Israel retains exclusive control over law enforcement, planning, and construction. Moreover, Israeli forces are in charge of all borders within and around the West Bank. These arrangements, which have been repeatedly condemned as attempts to de facto annex area C, begin to scratch the surface of what the Israeli occupation looks like today.