#from 2024

The Zionist end game in the West Bank is upon us. The last eleven months leave little room for doubt as settlers continue to actively depopulate Palestinian communities, kidnapping and torturing young men and establishing new colonies. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir openly boasts about seeking to build a synagogue on top of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

None of this should be understood as a new phase of Zionist settler colonialism; rather it is its sharpening, its coming out into the open in a more brazen way. What is happening in Gaza can and will happen elsewhere in Palestine. Not because the contexts or conditions are identical, but because they stem from the same supremacist logic and system of colonial domination.

It is a mistake to believe that a ceasefire, regardless of its form, will put the genie back into its bottle. We will not go back to the pre-October 7 status quo and move on with our lives until the next time Gaza is bombed. If anything, October 7 showed how completely unprepared the West Bank is for what is coming, partly due to stubborn self-deception nurtured over the last three decades: the idea that there can be any semblance of normal life under occupation in return for obedience.