“Quiet transfer” – ethnic cleansing in progress

JVL Introduction

The latest email from The Villages Group tells the story of the quiet, ongoing nakba in the West Bank as intolerable pressure is exerted to make Palestinians leave their homes.

With the new goverment, all restraint has been eroded and the settlers, lords of the land supported by the Israeli Occupation Force, act with impunity and unimaginable cruelty. This drive towards transfer, say Ehud Krinis and Erella Dunayevsky, “can (and should) be seen as the State of Israel’s plan of action”.

Meanwhile the protest movement in Israel –”to save Israeli democracy” – does not even conceive of opposition to the occupation as one of its demands.

Acceleration of the Quiet Transfer in Area C of the West Bank

Ehud Krinis and Erella Dunayevsky
Villages Group, 16 July 2023

Those who closely follow everyday life in the West bank parts defines as Area C in the 1993 Oslo Accords, know that there has been an ongoing process of “quiet transfer” in these areas for years now. This transfer aims to turn these areas – over 60% of the West Bank, including settlements, regional councils and firing zones of the Israeli occupation regime – into a zone with no Palestinian inhabitants. The way to empty Area C of its Palestinian inhabitants is to make their living conditions so unbearable that they would be forced to leave their present domiciles and move into the Palestinian localities in Areas A and B.

The people who draw up this policy and make sure to enforce it on the ground are not very familiar to the general public in Israel. Prominent among them is Ze’ev ‘Zambish’ Hever, officiating since 1989 as CEO of the Amanah settlement movement. Still, the quiet transfer policy has been deeply and broadly backed up for years by the various arms of the Israeli regime – the government, judiciary, military, police and security services, so much so that it can (and should) be seen as the State of Israel’s plan of action.

The great advantage of the quiet transfer policy is that it is long-term and patient, steadily progressing step by step. Thus, it gets minimal public and media attention. Official plans to evacuate entire communities, plans that are led by the state and supposed to be carried out by its official military and police forces, like the plan to evacuate Khan al-Ahmar – are the exceptions. The rule is to promote transfer indirectly yet consistently, by implementing countless daily local actions, simultaneously in many places, few of which reach public awareness in Israel and abroad. The logic of this policy is that of ‘one more dunam and one more goat’ (one step at a time), according to the tactic adapted ever since the onset of Zionist settlement. Another dunam added to the Jewish settlements and outposts in Area C, and another goat added to their herds, are one less dunam of grazing land and fields cultivated by the Palestinian inhabitants of these areas, and one less goat in their herds.

We are among the few activists from Israeli and international groups and organizations who act to strengthen Palestinians living in Area C in their struggle to hang on to their land (sumud) in resistance to the quiet transfer that is being conducted against them. We have been meeting on a regular basis, every week and for many years, Palestinians living in a part of Area C known as the South Hebron Hills. The consistent progressing of the quiet transfer policy, implemented in various ways by the settlers and fully backed by the Israeli occupation authorities, has accelerated, and escalated to such a degree that more and more of the Palestinians living in Area C are reaching their breaking point or have already reached it, and will not continue to live in their small, remote rural localities. The case of the inhabitants of the village of Ein Samiya, who could not endure anymore the settlers’ attacks and decided to leave their village on May this year, exemplified the existential threat many communities in Area C are facing now.

The present political situation plays into the hands of the settlers and their helpers. Their perception of themselves as lords of the land strengthens and with it diminishes their sense of the boundaries of power. Given the present state of affairs, the legal means used by human rights organizations to protect Palestinians have all but lost their impact. The appearance of a rule of law, to the small extent it existed in these areas, is now a thing of the past. The Palestinians living in Area C no longer have any kind of protection or help. They are completely exposed to the violence of settlers and their yes-men, cruel and harsh as this violence may be. The few Israeli and international activists who still come to help are practically helpless. The officials of the Palestinian Authority watch, like pitiable and helpless by-standers. The protest to save Israeli democracy has not placed resistance to the occupation on its banners. The world is busy with its own affairs and keeps silent. Thus, quiet transfer is making headway, unhampered.

Sadly Haaretz Daily and Local Call internet site did not respond to our request to publish this in their outlets.