Israeli “justice” is a matter of smoke and mirrors. Acting on the orders of the Israeli Supreme Court, troops on Sunday cleared the last of 280 extremists settlers from their Migron outpost. The court's decision was based on the finding that the settlement was illegal, because the hilltop outpost was built on Palestinian land. The world is supposed to applaud this judgement and the readiness of the Netanyahu government to send in soldiers to enforce it. Yet this is an utterly fraudulent act, by a state that is quite prepared to sanction the wholesale theft of Palestinian land for “official” settlement in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, in defiance of every precept of international law. The purpose of this little charade is clear. By appearing to uphold Palestinian rights in a tiny hill top, the Israeli establishment imagines that it can continue to get away with its real and deeply sinister agenda, which is to drive the Palestinians into an economically-useless ghetto in their own land. As ever, it is world opinion that the Israelis are courting, protesting that they are a country governed by the rule of law, which is prepared to act, seemingly against its own interests, if that is what the law requires. It is of course rubbish, but the Israeli establishment has become a master in this art of deception. The real view of the state is demonstrated by the fact that the extremists from Migron were merely moved by the troops, to a neighboring hilltop, also of course on Palestinian land. Meanwhile the authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the destructive and sometime murderous activities of the illegal settlers. The destruction of some 10,000 ancient olive trees by fire last year is an example of the lengths the settlers will go to to try to ruin the livelihoods of Palestinian land owners. It is a repeat of the widespread cutting down of orange groves around Jaffa in the years immediately before the 1948 creation of the Israeli state. It did not matter then that these groves were a valuable and productive resource for the whole community. What was at issue was that they were owned by Palestinians and the Israelis wanted them out, then as now. There have been arson attacks on mosques, which have been sprayed with obscene graffiti in Hebrew. The Israeli police have been stunning in their unpreparedness to do anything about these outrages. They haven't even bothered with crocodile tears. Indeed one local police commander even suggested that the June attack, with burning tires, on the village mosque at Al-Mughriah, near Ramallah, when walls were daubed in Hebrew, was the work of Palestinian provocateurs. In the face of such disdain and confronted with the latest legal sleight of hand from Israeli judges, the despair felt by Palestinians, but especially farmers, who know their land is forfeit, the minute the next bunch of Zionist bigots chooses to seize it, officially or unofficially, is profound. Nothing it seems can be done, in the face of Israel's drive to pauperize and drive out the people of the Occupied Territories.
