UN’s condemnation of Israeli settlements only encourages more illegal expansion

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The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a watered-down Presidential statement, endorsed by the US government, which expressed “concern” and “dismay” over Israeli illegal settlement expansion. Despite this being pegged as a step to at least slow “Tel Aviv’s” massive expansion efforts, it has in fact represented a green light for the Israelis to continue going further.

Earlier this month the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the occupied West Bank, indicated that it was going to bring a resolution on illegal Israeli settlement expansion to the UNSC, triggering immediate diplomatic efforts from the US Biden administration to prevent this. This occurred after the Israeli regime had announced its recognition of 9 settlement outposts across the West Bank, in addition to greenlighting plans for the expansion of 10,000 more settler units.

The Palestinian Authority’s goal, with the aid of the United Arab Emirates, was to get Washington on the record to act on their alleged opposition to illegal settlement expansion. Historically, the US government has repeatedly used its veto power at the UNSC to shelter the Israelis from criticism. If the Biden administration was to have used their veto power again, to prevent a UNSC resolution from being passed against "Israel’s" illegal efforts, then it would show that the Americans are not serious about holding their own policy line and hence cause embarrassment for it.

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who had visited occupied Palestine, in late January, had proposed a mini-roadmap for calming tensions inside the West Bank and occupied al-Quds; whereby the PA would re-establish security coordination with the occupation forces and "Israel" would reduce its deadly night raids, in addition to stopping additional settlement expansion. Whilst the PA has claimed that all security coordination has ended with the Israelis, as per the direct order of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, there have been several cases of clear cut coordination that have continued to persist. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that they would not listen to the US proposal, approving further settlement expansion; in addition to committing a massacre in Jabr Aqabat refugee camp in Ariha (Jericho); also expanding the scope of its deadly West Bank raids in general.

Whilst the US government issued a light condemnation of the Israeli continued settlement expansion, which happened in clear defiance of Antony Blinken’s proposals, no action was taken to combat the efforts of “Tel Aviv”. Instead, when the PA brought up the idea of taking the issue to a more high stakes vote at the Security Council, the US did everything possible to avert this step. 

The US’s Antony Blinken called both President Abbas and Israeli PM Netanyahu, in order to find a solution that would prevent the UNSC vote. The solution was for the UN to issue its watered down condemnation of Israeli settlement expansion, in return for a “compromise” that according to US and Israeli officials was demanded of both the PA and “Israel”. First we must address what the Israeli concessions were to be: a freeze to settlement expansion activities for an unspecified few months, a pause on ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homes until August and a reduction of the occupation military’s deadly night raids. According to a report from Axios, an official working in the Israeli PM’s office stated the following: "There are no understandings. We finished all the building plans last week and had no intention of convening the committee to approve new ones in the next three months anyway," this is congruent with the Zionist entity’s actions on the ground. 

According to all the evidence, the occupying regime has not conceded on a single thing, it will not pause the plans to construct the 10,000 settlement units, which is an active war crime, and has proven in practice that it will only continue home demolitions and raids that it has continued to conduct. So, the truth is that the only one making concessions has been the Palestinian Authority.

Although there has been no official announcement about this from the PA, nor any denial, the Palestinian Authority has reportedly entered into talks to resume its security coordination with the Israeli military. It has been reported that the Israelis also took measures in order to allow for 60 million USD in tax revenues to head to the PA per-year; in addition to this the US offered a financial package to the PA, which is currently suffering an economic meltdown in the West Bank. The US says that it has requested to reopen a Palestinian Authority consulate in the occupied Eastern part of Al-Quds too.

What is most concerning however, is that the PA has allegedly agreed to begin implementing a “security plan” that was set forth by the Biden administration's security coordinator Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, that aims to help the Ramallah-based authority resume control of the northern West Bank. This proposal includes training a special unit that would be part of the PA Security Forces, tasked with hunting down the newly formed resistance groups in areas like Jenin and Nablus. This special unit, under the proposal, is to be trained by US forces. This is essentially a plan to train a Palestinian death squad that will kill and arrest members of the Jenin Brigades and Lions Den groups.

If the PA has accepted this proposal, as reports suggest, this would mean that the specially trained, US-backed, unit, would be tasked with doing the job that the Zionist entity’s soldiers are simply too cowardly to do themselves. This would represent a catastrophe for the people of the West Bank and would turn the people against the PA in a way we have never seen before, possibly sparking a mini civil-war styled conflict. There are a number of ways that such measures could go, one of which would be that members of the PASF may end up turning against the Palestinian Authority itself and attempting to overthrow it. Such measures are simply unfathomable and represent a lack of understanding of facts on the ground by the PA, Israelis and Americans. In addition to this, the PA is said to be temporarily halting their efforts at the International Court of Justice, to pursue the case against Israeli war crimes.

Instead of the UN taking a step to combat illegal settlement expansion, what they have really done is to issue a non-effective light condemnation that effectively tells the Zionists to continue on as normal. The PA, which is isolated and economically weaker than ever, has accepted cash and further US backing, in return for dropping its diplomatic efforts against "Israel" that seeks to hold it accountable in the international arena. This was not actually a condemnation, but a greenlight for more war crimes and a step to temporarily stifle the diplomatic response to Zionist crimes by the PA.