Pressure in Key Settlement Battlegrounds
Dear Friends,

This month, Israel advanced a 2023 and 2024 state budget which allocates significant funding towards expanding and entrenching its de-facto annexation of the West Bank. This, alongside other bold and unilateral steps being taken in government and on the ground in defiance of international opposition, raises the urgency of meaningful and immediate intervention in key battleground areas including Homesh, Givat Hamatos, Atarot, and others in order to safeguard the viability of the two-state solution. Meanwhile, the combined efforts of local civil society and the international community proved their effectiveness twice this month, preventing harmful decisions including a damaging NGO taxation bill and the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar and highlighting the potential for future impact in other areas. 

The Two State Index drops -0.3% from 5.04 to 5.03 this month. Scroll through the headlines below for in-depth analysis on how developments this month impacted the feasibility of the two-state solution.

 

 

May at a Glance:


  • Israel Passes State Budget Financing De-Facto Annexation of West Bank: Analysts say 'hidden budgets' in other ministries will likely increase total funding to settlements

  • Battles Over Key West Bank Sites Hold Future of Two-State Solution At Stake – and Far-Right Israeli Ministers Know It: Outcomes of developments in Khan al-Ahmar vs. Homesh show Israel will continue entrenching settlement wherever they don't face significant and united opposition

  • Shelving of NGO Taxation Bill Highlights Effectiveness of Civil Society, Diplomatic Pressure: Though legislation is likely to be re-submitted in a different form, strong international pressure sets precedent for future areas of intervention

  • Hamas Sits Out Again In Latest Israel-Gaza Fighting, But Without Additional Steps The Next Round Is Assured: Israel must consider how to cultivate understandings to continue influencing where and when Hamas chooses to engage in conflict
     
  • Jerusalem Day Flag March Normalizes Far-Right Israeli Racism, Highlights Emboldened Ultranationalist Sentiments: Some 50,000 take part in provocative display of Jewish supremacy in disputed city at center of the conflict. 


These events decreased the Two State Index by -0.3% in May (down 0.01 points from 5.04 to 5.03)


 

To learn about the Geneva Initiative's TSI, visit our website

 

 

 

Israel Passes State Budget Financing De-Facto Annexation of West Bank

Israel this month passed the 2023 and 2024 state budgets, allocating some $941 million for projects that will expand and entrench Israel’s de-facto annexation of the West Bank. Analysts say that in addition to the nearly billion-dollar allocation for West Bank settlement projects that is laid out explicitly in the published budgets, significantly more funding is likely to be funneled to the settlements through other ministries’ ‘hidden budgets’.

“The state budget includes funds that obviously will go towards development of settlements – for example, within the transportation budget – as well as funds that we can assume will go towards development of the settlements – such as within the civil administration – but there is also a ‘hidden budget’ in ministries such as the interior ministry, agricultural ministry, and others.” explains Yoni Mizrachi, an analyst and researcher and head of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch unit. 

“In those offices, ministers can ‘prioritize’ unallocated funds for specific types of projects. And right-wing ministers have an interest in showing that they are supporting the settlements. And so we can assume that they will allocate disproportionately more than usual to projects in the West Bank." 

"But there is a lack of transparency, and we won’t really know how those funds will be spent until a few years down the line and only after filing freedom of information requests,” Mizrachi says.

The disproportionate allocation of state funding to projects serving West Bank settlements shows that Israel is putting its money where its mouth is and taking bold and decisive unilateral steps towards the de-facto annexation of the West Bank with little regard for international opposition.

According to published documents, approximately25% of the Transportation Ministry’s total budget will be allocated towards roads and infrastructure projects serving West Bank settlements, though Israel’s population in the settlements comprises just 5% of Israel’s nearly 10 million citizens. 


This includes funding for improving and expanding existing roads in and around the settlements, as well as paving new highways to bypass Palestinian areas, further segregating Israeli settlers and Palestinians. In addition to Transportation Ministry funds, another NIS 195 million ($52 million) has been allocated to the Civil Administration within the Defense Ministry for the development of West Bank infrastructure.

Another NIS 399 million ($107 million) will be directed to the Settlements Division of the World Zionist Congress through the Settlements and National Missions Ministry, which supports the development of rural Jewish communities both within Israel and the West Bank, and which has previously provided loans and land to settlers for the establishment of illegal outposts. An additional NIS 74 million ($20 million) allocated to the Settlements and National Missions Ministry will provide funding to enable settlement authorities monitor illegal Palestinian construction in the West Bank’s strategic Area C.

The reverse-scale Settlement Planning parameter, tracking the number and scope of settlement expansion plans advanced in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, drops from 3 to 2 this month in light of the passing of the State Budget with disproportionately high allocation of funding for projects expanding and entrenching Israeli settlement in disputed territory. The Settlement Infrastructure parameter, tracking the extent of Israeli agricultural, industrial, and transportation infrastructure in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, drops for 4 to 3.

 

 

Battles Over Key West Bank Sites Hold Future of Two-State Solution At Stake – and Far-Right Israeli Ministers Know It

Developments this month in key strategic battleground settlement sites including Homesh, E1, and Khan al-Ahmar highlighted their importance to the two-state solution, as well as the potential of consistent international pressure in safeguarding its viability. In Khan al-Ahmar, unwavering international attention has effectively prevented the forced evacuation and demolition of the village, while on the other hand, developments paving the way for re-settlement of Homesh show that the Israeli government will continue pushing towards entrenching settlement in key strategic areas wherever they don’t face significant and united opposition.

The Israeli military this month approved an order declaring the Homesh yeshiva part of the Samaria Regional Council, allowing Israelis to enter the area and paving the way for formal settlement. The yeshiva – which has operated illegally at the site for the past 15 years – was moved off private Palestinian land onto a nearby "public land"  following the reversal of the 2005 Disengagement Law in March, permitting Israeli access to the outposts of Homesh, Ganim, Kadim and Sa-Nur all of which were forcibly evacuated as part of Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip.


The move drew some international backlash, including criticism by the US which reiterated that it is inconsistent with historical commitments made between Israel and Washington in the Bush-Sharon era, as well as with the current government’s commitments to the Biden administration made earlier this year during regional summits in Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh. The European reaction was, by contrast, relatively weaker. 

Though Israel insists that legalization of the yeshiva is not a step towards re-settlement, the move marks a major legal and political victory for Israel’s nationalist, pro-settlement camp, and remarks by far-right nationalist Minister Bezalel Smotrich that he intends to advance projects to double the number of Israeli settlers residing in the West Bank from 500,000 to 1 million have done little to quell Washington’s doubts. On the other hand, a decision to postpone the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar, without setting a new date, reflects the effectiveness of strong international pressure on this issue. 

Comments made by Smotrich this month regarding the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar illustrate that the far-right knows very well that the battle over these strategic sites will be critical in deciding the future of the territories. Smotrich acknowledged that the far-right’s focus on the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar has less to do with the fact that the village is unrecognized, and is more due to its strategic location in E1: “It’s the area that will decide if, heaven forbid, there will be territorial contiguity that will connect Bethlehem with Nablus and Ramallah, God forbid, a terrorist state next to the State of Israel, or the opposite: Israeli Jewish territorial contiguity from Jerusalem, from east to west, which will slice that Arab territorial contiguity.” Smotrich said.

“Putting aside terminology that highlights Smotrich’s tendency to see Palestinian self-determination as the end of the world, few peace policy advocates could phrase the issues at stake better,” writes Geneva Initiative Deputy Director Tehila Wenger in an analysis of the remarks. “Khan Al-Akhmar, Givat Hamatos, Atarot, and half a dozen other battleground building sites raise an international maelstrom each time construction permits are issued despite the fact that very few Israelis can even locate them on a map because they represent the possibility of a negotiated solution: a Palestinian state with control over its own territory and unimpeded access to East Jerusalem.”

 

The Greatest Believers in the Two-State Solution: Analysis
The Greatest Believers in the Two-State Solution: Analysis
"The most faithful believer of all time in the viability of a two-state solution is Minister Bezalel Smotrich.This was apparent on May 1st, when he stressed the strategic importance of Khan Al-Akhmar as a critical deciding factor in the future of the territories," writes Geneva Initiative Deputy Director Tehila Wenger.

"As de facto annexation of the territories deepens and the levels of distrust between the populations rise with each successive round of violence, those who maintain the dream of a Jewish and democratic state can look to Smotrich for hope. While much of the political leadership of the center and left appears to have given up, he adamantly maintains that a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel is still possible."
Read more

 

“Smotrich and the ideological settler movement that he represents appear to understand this better than any political leadership on the left. The settler enterprise has failed to make significant demographic inroads deep within the West Bank. The vast majority of the Jewish population in the territories still lives in blocks immediately adjacent to the Green Line, leaving open a future border agreement that relies on land swaps… Given the demographic and geographic failures of the settler movement, cutting off East Jerusalem from major Palestinian cities and splitting the territory of the West Bank in half with a settler corridor are the best means that the extreme right in Israel has of preventing a future peace agreement. Their efforts in that direction indicate how much credence they give to the possibility of such an agreement," Wenger writes.

Indeed, the far-right pro-settlement camp has continued to take unilateral steps both on a governmental level and on the ground in defiance of international opposition. Israel this month published new tenders for 1,248 new settlement units in Beitar Illit, Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Ma'ale Efraim and Karnei Shomron in addition to 89 units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, and advanced plans for a new bypass road for Palestinians in the contentious E1 area. The road will connect the southern and northern West Bank without passing through nearby settlements, enabling further future Israeli development in E1.


Israel has also ramped up demolitions of unauthorized Palestinian construction throughout the West Bank’s Area C, including in Silwan, Jericho, Bethlehem, Jerusalem’s Jabal Al-Mukabir neighborhood, and in Jabbet Al Dhib village near Bethlehem, where the demolition of a Palestinian primary school drew harsh condemnation from the European Union. In addition to the demolition of Palestinian structures in the area, a UN report published this month says more than 5,000 olive trees have been felled and uprooted since April, in act of settler vandalism aimed at preventing Palestinian cultivation of agricultural lands in strategic Area C. The UN has also reported that the last residents of the Palestinian community of Ein Samia have been forced to dismantle their homes and flee the area as a result of repeated home demolitions and violence and vandalism perpetrated by Israeli settlers.

“Successive Israeli governments have done all their best to build up Jewish settlements in West Bank in ways that will make it impossible for a two states solution to thrive, and the current Israeli government is finishing the job by pushing to leave no opportunity for Palestinian contiguity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” says Mohammed Younis, a Palestinian writer based in Ramallah.

No changes are recorded to relevant TSI parameters. The reverse-scale Settler Violence parameter, tracking the number and impact of settler attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, remains at 7.5/10.

 

 

Shelving of NGO taxation bill shows effectiveness of civil society, diplomatic pressure: 

The Israeli government suspended, at least temporarily, proposed legislation targeting foreign government funding for Israeli NGOs following strong international and civil society backlash. The law, which would restrict the ability of Israeli human rights organizations to accept donations from foreign governments, was sharply criticized by many of Israel’s staunchest allies. 

The bill, which was introduced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, would have revoked the tax-exempt status of nonprofit organizations engaged in public advocacy within two years before or after receiving a donation, it will not be considered a public institution eligible for tax exemptions. Though the bill mainly appeared to target human rights and advocacy groups, other medical aid, development, and education organizations that receive foreign government funding would have also been harmed by the proposed law.


The proposed law was removed from the agenda of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation following high-level diplomatic intervention and civil society pressure. Though the legislation is likely to be re-examined and re-submitted in a different form, the strong international pressure sets a strong precedent for future areas of intervention.

No changes are recorded to relevant TSI parameters. All International Actors parameters remain unchanged at 7/10, while the Israeli and Palestinian Civil Society parameters remain at 8 and 4 respectively.

 

 

Hamas Sits Out Again In Latest Israel-Gaza Fighting, But Without Additional Steps The Next Round Is Assured

This month’s “Operation Shield and Arrow” marked Israel’s fifth military operation in Gaza in five years. The operation was launched as a delayed response to Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket fire into Israel following the death of imprisoned PIJ leader Khader Adnan following an 86-day hunger strike in protest of his detention without trial. Adnan was the first Palestinian prisoner to die in Israeli custody since Palestinian inmates began staging protracted hunger strikes more than a decade ago.

The Israeli offensive saw the targeted killing of 6 senior PIJ figures, dealing a severe blow to the group’s domestic chain of command. A total of 33 Gazans were killed in the operation, among them at least 13 civilians including women and children. PIJ militants fired more than 1,500 rockets into Israel, killing 1 Israeli civilian and 1 Gazan laborer who was recognized by Israel as a victim of terrorism entitling his family to Israeli state benefits including payments supporting his wife and six children. 

Despite rhetoric of a united Palestinian resistance, Hamas clearly stayed out of the fighting – marking the second time in two years it has allowed Israel to target its unruly domestic rivals without interference. In doing so, Israel avoided the multi-theatre conflict it has warned could be on the horizon amid a strategic re-configuration underway across the Middle East. 


Hamas’ primary incentive for remaining on the sidelines of the past two rounds of conflict between PIJ and Israel has been the significant economic and diplomatic assets it has accumulated in recent years, including an unprecedented number of work permits for Gazans, major investment in reconstruction by Egypt, and the transfer of approximately 30 million shekels ($8.2 million) a month in Qatari funding to Gaza – mainly in support of Hamas civil servants – with Israel’s tacit approval.

“The first priority for Hamas in the Gaza Strip is to maintain its rule, and it will mostly   avoid doing anything that could destabilize itself including hindering the transfer of Qatari money to the Strip,” says Akram Atallah, a Palestinian writer and researcher based in London. “Maintaining the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is an Israeli national security issue, and Israel is using all the tools in its arsenal to deepen this separation, including a carrot-and-stick policy with Hamas. But Hamas, like all other players, is gearing up  for the post-Abbas era, with eyes on the PLO and the political leadership of the Palestinian people.”

As such, Israel must consider how it will further cultivate its understandings with Hamas through Egyptian mediation to continue influencing where and when Hamas chooses to engage in conflict with Israel. For now, both sides will now return to the status quo established in recent years. But without additional and ongoing steps that ease civilian hardships in Gaza and provide some hope of a future political horizon for peace, the next escalation is an assurance.

The Palestinian Attacks (Gaza) and Israeli Military Actions (Gaza) rise temporarily this month from 4 to 5 respectively, but the Prospects for War parameter remains unchanged at 3/10 reflecting both sides disinterest in a wider escalation. The Gaza Humanitarian & Economic Conditions also remains unchanged at 5/10.

 

 

Jerusalem Day Flag March Normalizes Far-Right Israeli Racism, Highlights Emboldened Ultranationalist Sentiments

This month’s controversial Jerusalem Day flag march included  disturbing, although increasingly familiar, displays of far-right racism, as some 50,000 Israeli nationalists marched through Jerusalem’s Old City Muslim Quarter to the Western Wall, just below the ultra-sensitive Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif Compound, in a provocative display of Jewish supremacy in the disputed city at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

The march came on the heels of a fragile ceasefire agreement to end the most recent round of violence between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. During the current round, much attention was given to whether the fighting would be drawn out over Jerusalem Day – which drew Hamas into conflict with Israel in May 2021. 


The march was secured by over 2,000 police officers and more than 1,000 other security personnel.  Despite some limited clashes between Palestinian residents and Israeli nationalist marchers, as well as racist chants of “Death to Arabs”, “Mohammed is Dead” and “May Your Village Burn” that have become a regular feature of the march, the day concluded largely without incident. 

Far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir did not visit the Temple Mount during the march, in an apparent effort by cooler heads to avoid further provocation after Hamas warned Israel not to cross “red lines”. Ben Gvir – who has in the past frequently advocated for formally altering the Temple Mount status quo to allow for Jewish prayer – visited the site days after the march declaring defiantly “we are in charge here”. 

No changes to relevant TSI parameters are recorded.

 

 

Other Developments:

  • UN’s first Palestinian Nakba Day Event Overshadowed in Israel By Abbas’ Nazi Comparison: The UN this month held its first-ever commemoration of Nakba Day, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the war surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The event was boycotted by 30 states, including the US, UK, Germany, and Canada, while others downgraded their representation to the event. The commemoration, as covered in Israel, was largely overshadowed by controversial remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the event, in which he compared Israeli “lies” to those of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. 


  • Israel advances bill imposing one-year imprisonment on people waving Palestinian flag: Israel this month advanced legislation that will declare any gathering at which three or more people wave the flag of an enemy entity or organization, including the Palestinian flag, to be illegal. Those taking part in the gathering may therefore be arrested and subject to a prison sentence of up to one year. It would also be possible to disperse such a gathering by law. The legislation, which must pass three additional votes to become law, appears to target demonstrations organized by Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom identify as Palestinians, and by left-wing Israelis who opposed the government's settlement policies. Recent protests against the government’s controversial judicial reforms have often included a large contingency of anti-occupation demonstrators.

 

 

The Two-State Index (TSI) is part of the Two-State Coalition (TSC) that is brought to you by the Geneva Initiative, a Palestinian-Israeli organization working to promote a negotiated peace agreement in the spirit of the two-state vision. The TSI is part of the Two-State Coalition project, produced by an Israeli-Palestinian team, and reflects a unique bilateral perspective.

Think we missed something this month? Send us tips and comments here. 

 

 

 

Advertisement
This message was sent byTwo-State Index, H.L. Education for Peace, Geneva Initiative, 33 Jabotinsky rd., Ramat-Gan 525108, Israel, 03-693-8780
 You may notify us, any time, for no charge, of your refusal to receive advertisements by sending a refusal message to the address [email protected]
 or by pressing the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the message.