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Amid growing tensions between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and new Israeli government efforts to expand control over the area, an Israeli general on Monday harshly condemned the government’s policies there and said Condemn the rising “nationalist crime” in Israel.
Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, the outgoing commander of Israel’s Central Command, which is in charge of Israel’s military presence in the West Bank, said at his departure ceremony that a “strong and functioning” Palestinian Authority was in Israel’s security interests.
The general’s statement appeared to be a swipe at Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is himself a settler and has represented Israel by detaining around 40% of the West Bank. Taxes collected by regions were used to weaken the authority of the authorities.
General Fox also expressed dismay at the increase in settler violence in the West Bank, which is home to some 2.7 million Palestinians and has well over 500,000 Jewish settlers. He said a small number of extremely violent settlers have been damaging Israel’s international reputation and spreading fear among Palestinians. “To me, that’s not Judaism,” he said. “At least it wasn’t the way I grew up in my parents’ house. That’s not the way of Torah.
After Israel seized control of the West Bank from Jordan in 1967 in a war with three Arab states, Israeli civilians settled there with the government’s tacit and explicit approval, living under Israeli civil law while their Palestinian neighbors are subject to Israeli military law.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are widely considered illegal by the international community, and many of them are illegal under Israeli law but are tolerated by the government. Many of the outposts that were initially illegal under Israeli law were later legalized by the government, and Palestinians have long viewed them as a slow-motion annexation that turned the land needed for any independent Palestinian state into an unmanageable patchwork.
Last year, the United Nations reported that attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank surged in the weeks after the Oct. 7 attack sparked a war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, killing at least 115 people and injuring more than 2,000. 10 people were injured.
General Fox believes that intimidating Palestinians living with Jews is “a dangerous mistake” and that violence by Jewish settlers threatens Israel’s security.
But Mr. Smotrich has been outspoken about wanting Israel to claim the entire West Bank. Last month he struck a deal with ministers to release some funds withheld from the Palestinian Authority in exchange for the legalization of five more Jewish outposts, and last week the Treasury released about $136 million.
Smotrich posted on social media that day that he was working with planning authorities to approve the construction of more than 5,000 additional housing units on the West Bank. “We are building a wonderful state and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said.
Last month, Israeli authorities approved the largest land expropriation in the West Bank since Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, taking about 5 square miles of the Jordan Valley, according to Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors settler activity. Have sovereignty. Peace Now says Israel has captured about 9 square miles of territory this year, making 2024 the peak year for funding so far.
Although the settlers and ministers are defiant, their activities are a source of tension between Israel and other countries, including its ally the United States, at a time when Israel is increasingly isolated in the world due to its war in Gaza.
“Reconciliation remains counterproductive to a two-state solution,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing with reporters on Monday. “We do not support this approach.”
Jonathan Rice Contributed reporting.
