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The Israeli government has condemned Canada after a government agency called Wednesday for an end to settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, the West Bank is the territory between Israel and the Jordan River that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war and has held ever since. Around 3 million Palestinians live there alongside roughly 500,000 Israeli settlers, not counting East Jerusalem. Under the Oslo Accords the land was carved into three zones: Area A, where the Palestinian Authority handles civil and security matters, Area B, where the PA handles civil affairs and Israel handles security, and Area C, which is about 60 percent of the territory and remains under full Israeli control. Palestinians have accused Israel of slowly pushing them out of their land by expanding settlements most of the world considers illegal under international law, demolishing homes, torching olive groves and vehicles, choking movement with checkpoints, and arresting people en masse, with armed settlers raiding villages under what residents describe as army protection or indifference. Israel rejects the framing entirely. It calls the land Judea and Samaria, argues it was taken in a defensive war and was never a sovereign Palestinian state, and says its operations target militant networks behind shootings, stabbings, and car rammings that have killed and wounded Israeli civilians.
What’s going on now: Canada’s foreign ministry, Global Affairs Canada, condemned ongoing violence in the West Bank and Israel’s expansion in this area. They said “The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank must stop. These settlements are illegal under international law and undermine prospects for peace, security and stability. We call for the de-escalation and protection of civilians. International humanitarian law must be respected, and all civilians must be able to live in safety and security.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry answered the same day, accusing Ottawa of moving to “embolden terror.” “A wave of Palestinian terrorism is sweeping Judea and Samaria. Israelis are being murdered and wounded by Palestinian terrorists,” the ministry said. “Yet Canada’s response is not to focus on the terrorists or those who glorify and encourage them, but to condemn Israel.”
Hours before Canada weighed in, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was alarmed that Israel intends to build more settlements and outposts, and that Israeli officials have been publicly pushing for retaliation against Palestinian communities as a whole.
Everything got worse after an incident Friday in the village of Tal, near Nablus. By one account, a Palestinian man took a weapon away from a settler during a confrontation and killed him with it. By Palestinian accounts, four Palestinians and two Israelis died in an attack carried out under Israeli army protection. Israel labeled the killing an act of terror, and that label became the basis for a broad crackdown on Palestinian communities in the area.
