Israeli Government’s Apocalyptic Vision: Turning Gaza Into West Bank, and West Bank Into Gaza
Israeli soldiers stand near a military vehicle during an Israeli raid in Nour Shams camp in Tul Karm, in the West Bank, on Thursday.Credit: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters
While the Israeli media this weekend concerned itself, with infinite seriousness, with the mud ball that was allegedly thrown at Itamar Ben-Gvir at the beach, the entire country continued to sink into the real mud, courtesy of the national security minister and his partners: that is, the project of turning the West Bank into Gaza and Gaza into the West Bank.
These are two parallel deep processes that have accelerated greatly since the outbreak of the October 7 war and its consequences, and are creating a dangerous reality.
In the West Bank, the war in Gaza has raised the scale of escalation on almost every level: On the Palestinian side, the motivation for violence is growing alongside the increase in arms smuggling. Settler violence is more rampant than ever, under the protection of the far-right government, and the army began to deploy in the West Bank with forces, equipment and intensity that are directly influenced by the fighting in Gaza.
The killing of innocent civilians on a scale that was unimaginable before the war in Gaza has become routine, normalized by what is happening there. And all of this is proceeding alongside the economic oppression that Israel has imposed on the West Bank since October and the political trampling of the Palestinian Authority – this, despite the fact that the PA is still Israel’s only partner on the ground in curbing the terror. If this trend persists, it will lead at some point to the complete Hamasization of the West Bank and to rising violence and daily friction among Palestinians, settlers and the army. It will be a second Gaza.
Concurrently, in Gaza itself, the Netanyahu government seeks not only to maintain a permanent Israeli military presence but also to introduce military rule. This is evident from the leaks and reports, according to which Israel plans to take control soon of the distribution of humanitarian aid in the Strip.