Stop the silent transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank
JVL Introduction
We welcome this powerful editorial in Haaretz, making it absolutely clear that Israel’s actions in the West Bank are beyond despicable, that “nobody should be surprised when Israel finds itself in the dock on charges of transfer and persecution”.
We know editorial statements generally focus on one thing.
And yet, we want to remark on two dreadful silences.
Israelis who care seem to care more about events in the West Bank than those in Gaza where the level of crime committed, up to and including genocide, is so much more extensive.
And the recognition of the crime of transfer and persecution inevitably takes us back to the Nakba, reminding us that the post-1948 state of Israel was built on precisely the same crimes, unrecognised and unacknowledged to this day.
This article was originally published by Haaretz Editorial on Tue 13 Oct 2026. Read the original here.
Stop the silent transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank
Not giving them the opportunity to return would constitute population transfer, which is defined as a war crime. And after that, nobody should be surprised when Israel finds itself in the dock
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It is obviously abhorrent what is happening in the West Bank, with forced displacement and war crimes against civilians. Particularly, the protection of the state-armed militia by the IOF, as they attack Palestinian farmers trying to harvest their crops, destroy their homes, uproot olive trees and set fire to homes. Only last night, according to “Eye On Palestine” [https://x.com/EyeonPalestine?lang=en], two Palestinians were shot in the head with rubber bullets, and two young children returning home from school in Masafer Yatta, returned to find their home had been bulldozed by the IOF. We know that the Israeli regime ignores International Law and will take no notice of what the Supreme Court has ordered. Nevertheless, we have to continue to call for the implementation of International Law, support the ICC and call for the arrest and imprisonment of the Israeli criminals, Katz, Netanyahu, Smotrich and Gvir, along with their fellow Genocider`es.
This ‘transfer’ as you call it has been going on continuously in the West Bank since 1967, with accelerating spurts each time there was ‘mowing of the lawn’ in Gaza or trouble on any of the borders surrounding Israel. In fact 7 October was a result of the atrocities in the West Bank by crazed settlers and hilltops in daily pogroms which accelerated in mass kiliings, (nearly 1500, and the emptying of the refugee camps of nearly 40,000 Palestinians, the destruction of their homes and hospitals, and all UNWRA facilities, on what can only be described as a continuation of the genocide in Gaza. The UK’s settlement sanctions (which only come into play 6 to 9 months hence) are a joke. Instead of sweeping sanctions on all of Israel, and sending a task force to stop both the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, and taking in mass food and medical supplies and sheller, and removing Israel completely from the ALL occupied territories, as required by ICJ rulings, the UK and US back Israel and arm it to the hilt, and then cry foul when Zionism is exposed as a racist genocidal ideology which lies at the basis of all these crimes for which they must be brought to account, together with all complicit Western leaders. They must be pressured to act NOW, as the FINAL SOLUTION is in process.
Sorry Richard, but to call this a “powerful editorial” is a misnomer.
It would be fair to call it a brave editorial, but only because of the context in which it is written, where its authors, despite being Jewish, risk their personal safety and that of their families at the hands of demented mobs directly incited by a fascist government.
Yet the editorial – almost certainly a compromise by an editorial team with differing views – is weak, full of equivocations, and simply ignores the internally irreversible depravity of the organs of state power. Phrases such as “the settlers and their representatives…” or “The Supreme Court must stop…” or “raise suspicions that” are pious and euphemistic rhetoric. The elephant in the room – the ICJ ruling that Israel must leave the occupied territories immediately – is not even mentioned.
The editorial is interesting primarily as an expression of the current limits of permitted liberal dissidence and self-censorship in a depraved totalitarian society. That is how it will be judged in the years to come when ‘everyone will have always been against this’. For now it will of course be airily dismissed by many British born leftists who have never lived under totalitarian conditions and do not have the capacity to imagine how they themselves would behave in such circumstances.
But as an objective description of reality – powerful it is not.