In early September, we welcomed Islah Jad, a researcher at Birzeit University known for her work on women’s movements and president of our partner organisation, the Bisan Centre for Research and Development, which has been working with Palestinian communities and marginalised groups since 1989. Her visit gave us the opportunity to arrange media and political interviews for her so that she could share her personal experiences and her perspective on events in the West Bank. In a interview for De Wereled Morgen, in which she describes the daily violence of Israeli colonisation and points out that the ongoing genocide in Gaza is part of a long history of systematic oppression, land theft and colonisation.
850,000 settlers in the occupied West Bank
The situation was already dire before 7 October 2023. At the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993, there were some 120,000 settlers in the West Bank; today, their number is estimated to be around 850,000.
Whilst the genocide in Gaza is the focus of attention, the West Bank has not been spared: houses, cars and farmland have been set alight; there have been attacks by armed settlers, drones and live-fire shooting. According to Islah, 118 small communities of shepherds or Bedouins have been attacked in order to drive them off their land. At university, classes are severely disrupted, but for her, teaching remains a form of resistance. She also condemns the contrast between the sanctions imposed on Russia and the timid nature of the measures taken against Israel:
“It is important to impose sanctions on the export of goods from the settlements. But if we compare these sanctions with those imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, we see that, at the time, more than 11,000 sanctions were imposed on Russia in just two months. Compare this with the very long period of oppression, injustice and inhumane treatment endured by the Palestinian people. Recently, we have certainly been hearing more about «sanctions», but only those imposed on the settlers.»
Finally, she condemns the attempt to discredit any criticism by labelling it anti-Semitic. Her message: «When you defend the rights of Palestinians, you are defending your own rights, your humanity, and your own right to freedom of expression”. »
