TEL AVIV: On Tuesday, Palestinians from Ur al-Tahta, a West Bank village near Ramallah, blocked off highway 443 in protest of the recent uptick in settler violence, the Alternative Information Center reports. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) quickly came to quell the protest and open the highway, which connects Jerusalem to Israeli settlements. The IDF used physical force and sound grenades to clear the area. Coinciding with the olive harvest season, the IDF has imposed heavy restrictions on Palestinian movement, and settlers launched several attacks on Palestinians over the last week. On Friday, settlers attacked farmers in Ur al-Tahta as they picked olives. In Bet Ummar, a village situated in the South Hebron Hills, soldiers forbid farmers from reaching their olive fields as punishment for recent protests against the military's illegal confiscation of the village's land. In Qaryout, near Nablus, settlers set several dozen olive trees on fire. Later that day, they returned and attacked several villagers. Legal immunity for settlers? In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 2.5 million Palestinians are under martial law, and roughly 350,000 Israeli settlers under civilian administration. Though the state, including Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, publicly condemns settler violence,, the military rarely prevents settler attacks on civilians and often arrests and imprisons those who defend themselves against the settlers. In Hebron, soldiers accompany settlers who storm the Palestinian market each Saturday after the Jewish day of rest concludes. Settlers regularly throw urine, feces, and stones down on the market from the windows of the settlement. A caged-netting has been put above the stores, but it offers no protection from liquids or small stones. Susiya, a village near Hebron, has seen its animals slaughtered and water wells poisoned by settlers who attack during nighttime raids. In August, a settler injured two adults and two children when he threw a Molotov cocktail at a taxi cab coming from a nearby refugee camp. No arrests have been made. “This is Apartheid," Fadi Ghassan, a 23-year-old man from Ramallah, told Bikyamasr.com. “How are they allowed to attack us with stones and steal our lands and olives, but we cannot hold a peaceful protest?" “Last month, my uncle was driving past Bet Al," he began, referring to a large Israeli settlement near Ramallah. “The settlers hit his car with several rocks. They threw them from over the fence. When he got out to curse at them, he saw that there was a soldier standing right next to them, just watching." It is not inequality alone that bothers Palestinians; many are scared for physical harm. “There was a time when settlers were scared of us," said Imm Omar, a mother of five who lives in El-Bireh. “That time has come and gone. Things have changed. We won't use certain roads if the kids are with us." The Palestinian Authority: assisting Israeli violence? Addressing the United Nations General Assembly last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas referred to Israeli settlements as “racist" and said that gangs of “settler terrorists" have been attacking Palestinians on a regular basis. Many Palestinians, however, view the PA as the enforcer of Israel's occupation. In order to honor its security agreements through the Oslo Accords negotiations with Israel, the PA violently cracks down on peaceful protesters, often holding journalists and activists in jail without charge or trial. “The Oslo Agreements effectively transformed the Palestinian Authority into Israel's security subcontractor, with the occupied population ironically required to provide security for the occupier, thereby reversing international legal norms regarding the role of an occupier towards an occupied population and committing gross human rights abuses against Palestinians," wrote Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian human rights lawyer. In July, PA security forces violently attacked hundreds of youth who assembled outside the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah. As demonstrators amassed to express outrage against Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz's visit, PA forces beat, dragged, and arrested dozens. “It's a joke to see [Abbas] up there condemning settler violence," Shadi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, told Bikyamasr.com. “His government was built for the purpose of protecting Israel's violent occupation," he continued, which allows settlements to expand at rapid rates. Last month, immense protests broke out across the West Bank. Though the immediate trigger was poor economic conditions, demonstrators in several cities called for President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to retire, some going as far as demanding that the PA disband. On multiple occasions President Abbas has publicly expressed his desire to retire from politics in the near future, but has overstayed his elected term by three years. The PA has not held elections since 2006.
