To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Like every authoritarian before him, Trump is working to co-opt news sources and control what the public sees and hears. Too many corporate outlets are bending the knee—but not Common Dreams. We will never be intimidated, and we will never compromise the core values that define our community: social justice, universal human rights, equality, and peace. Because we are funded by ordinary people like you, our editorial freedom is guaranteed.
The plan threatens 7,000 Palestinians with forced displacement and would cut East Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank.
With a growing number of countries around the world recognizing Palestinian statehood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday declared that "there will be no Palestinian state" as he signed an agreement to develop a key settlement in the West Bank—prompting calls for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its illegal occupation and apartheid policies in Palestinian territories.
At an event in the settlement of Maale Adumim, Netanyahu was joined by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Construction and Housing Minister Haim Katz as he signed an agreement with the town to develop 3,400 new housing units in the E1 settlement, which has long been stalled due to US opposition.
The Trump administration has reversed that opposition, clearing the way for Israel to link thousands of illegal settlements together and cut off East Jerusalem—which Palestinians have named as the future capital of a Palestinian state—from the rest of the West Bank.
Netanyahu said Thursday that the plan will "double the population" of Israelis in Maale Adumim, which like all of Israel's settlements in the West Bank is illegal under international law. Last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal and said it was guilty of confiscating "large areas" of Palestinian land for Israeli settlers.
“We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us," said Netanyahu.
As +972 Magazine reported Friday, 7,000 Palestinians in the West Bank face forced displacement if the plan moves forward, and north-south travel could become "almost impossible," as the proposed settlement would establish separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis and would divert Palestinian drivers from Route 1 onto a bypass.
The town of Ezariyah, where many current residents travel frequently for shopping and other daily needs, "would become a geographically isolated island," Mohammad Mattar, a member of the town's municipality, told +972. "The road will cut right against people’s homes, leaving no room for natural expansion, and the town will lose thousands of dunams of land. This will force many residents to leave and deal a devastating economic blow.”
Mattar said that 112 demolition orders have already been issued for homes, shops, factories, and farmland.
"Some businesses have already evacuated and cut their losses, while others are waiting," he said. "It will force many residents to leave, particularly Jerusalemites who have built their lives and livelihoods around the town."
On Thursday, the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now reported that it had prepared billboards denouncing the E1 plan to display in Maale Adumim during Netanyahu's event, but Mayor Guy Yifrah blocked them from being displayed.
In addition to "burying" the possibility of a Palestinian state, as Smotrich said last month, "the annexation led by Smotrich and Netanyahu will bury Israel," Peace Now said.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, presidential spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera that a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is "inevitable" regardless of Netanyahu's agreement to the E1 plan.
Rudeineh noted that 149 United Nations member states have recognized Palestinian statehood, with the number jumping in recent months as countries including France and Ireland have announced their recognition, and called on other countries to do the same to increase pressure on Netanyahu to back off the E1 plan.
"As more governments recognize a Palestinian state, it makes it harder for Netanyahu to proceed with his preferred options—mass expulsion (no Palestinians for a state) or endless apartheid (oppressive occupation with no state)," said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, last week.
Inès Abdel Razek, executive director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, told +972 that with Israel starving the people of Gaza with its blockade on humanitarian aid and slaughtering more than 64,000 Palestinians there so far since beginning its bombardment of the exclave nearly two years ago while also stepping up violence in the West Bank, the recognition of a Palestinian state by individual countries is "increasingly irrelevant."
"The most we can say about the fact that governments choose recognition as a measure right now, in the midst of a genocide that needs to end, is that it is really too little, too late," she told +972. "What governments should be doing, not only as a moral obligation, but as a political and legal obligation under international law, is to end the genocide and the occupation, and to hold Israel accountable."
"For the PA, recognition is a victory," said Abdel Razek. "But if you look on the ground, there is little resembling a Palestinian state... What does exist are Palestinians themselves, fighting to remain on their land and to see their fundamental right to self-determination fulfilled."
Instead of placing the burden of reform solely on the Palestinians, the U.S., Western Europe, and the Arab states should take concrete measures to force Israel to end its occupation.
Last week, the United Nations was scheduled to convene a special session promoting a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israel’s attack on Iran and the deadly exchanges that followed resulted in a postponement. While the rest of the world may have the luxury of tuning in or out to the plight of the Palestinian people, the situation in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem only worsens. Their dire state is compounded by the feckless response of most nations to the ongoing tragedy. Instead of definitively condemning the genocide and the occupation, the best they can muster are hollow and sometimes banal pronouncements urging the parties to negotiate (as if there were something about which to negotiate) or professions of their support for a two-state solution (as if that were even possible at this point).
This hasn’t stopped some from proposing “peace plans,” calling for international peacekeepers, a “reformed Palestinian Authority,” and a disarming of Hamas. But these proposals also ignore two important realities: Israel’s rejection of every element of every plan put forward to date, and the fact that the Israeli occupation is so entrenched and has so distorted the realities on the ground in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem that the way forward to Palestinian independence has become far more complicated than it was at the time of the Oslo accords.
To better understand where we are and what must be done, my company has conducted annual polls in the occupied lands in order to assess Palestinian attitudes toward their current situation and their hopes for the future. What comes through quite clearly in these surveys is that the Palestinians in all three areas are in deep distress. As a result of the unique burdensome conditions Israel has imposed on them, there are distinct differences in the opinions of respondents in each area—toward their governance, the threats they face, and their hopes for the future. These cannot be ignored.
The bottom line from our three years of polling is that the unique circumstances that Israel has imposed on Palestinians have created greater complexity in finding a path forward.
For two decades, Gaza was severed from the rest of the Palestinian population and economically strangled by Israel, with Hamas being both punished and then rewarded by the Israeli government which sought to foster a division in Palestinian ranks. This was accomplished, enabling Hamas to grow in strength.
Israel’s war on Gaza has had devastating consequences for Palestinians. Our findings were able to quantify the magnitude of their losses. Almost two-thirds report having been forced to evacuate their families four or more times in the first 18 months. Most have lost family members. A full 70% say that their homes have been totally destroyed, with majorities reporting extreme scarcity of food, water, medical services, and adequate shelter.
The three-decades-long enforced closure of East Jerusalem has severed the city’s Palestinians from their compatriots in the rest of the occupied territories. Before closure, Palestinians from the West Bank came to Jerusalem for employment and services. After closure, Palestinians in East Jerusalem lost their customers, clients, and income, and were forced to become incorporated into the Israeli economy. Since October 7, our polls show majorities reporting heightened levels of economic and political distress.
There is also increased economic insecurity in the West Bank. Because Israeli policies retarded independent economic development, the two largest employers of Palestinians in the West Bank became securing permits to work as day laborers in Israel or Israeli settlements or working for the Palestinian Authority. After the war, Israel suspended work permits and restricted the transfer of Palestinian tax revenues to the PA, forcing the PA to reduce salaries. As a result, there has been a tripling of unemployment in the West Bank and an increased impoverishment of the population.
What has also grown are the severity of threats experienced by Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, emanating from settler violence, home demolitions, land seizures, forced expulsions, and raids from Israeli security forces. As a result, Palestinians report feeling increasingly threatened and insecure.
Our findings also demonstrate a Palestinian crisis of confidence in their own leadership. Palestinians in Gaza want little to do with Hamas, while those in the West Bank have diminished regard for the role of the PA. Gazans increasingly blame both Hamas and Israel for the war, and three-quarters of West Bank Palestinians are dissatisfied with the PA’s overall performance in response to the conflict. The PA, which once conveyed the promise of a Palestinian future, has increasingly come to be seen as humiliated by Israel, or even as an agent of the occupation.
These factors combined—the devastation created by the war and Israeli policies that have negatively impacted and created a loss of confidence in their leadership—define the crisis confronting Palestinians today. They know what they want—independence, security, an improved economy and better jobs, and improved services—but don’t see a clear path forward.
Flowing from this, our poll findings point to some disturbing signs of despair. When asked for their preferred strategies moving forward, the plurality of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza say they just want the situation to revert to pre-October 7 but with better paying jobs, and improved services and quality of life. And despite the finding that a majority of Gazans and a plurality of West Bank Palestinians still favor a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, almost two-thirds of respondents in all three areas say that, given current political conditions and facts on the ground, they believe the situation is now close to a one-state reality in which Israel controls Palestinians throughout Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
The bottom line from our three years of polling is that the unique circumstances that Israel has imposed on Palestinians have created greater complexity in finding a path forward. Current efforts of the international community focus on what Palestinians must do. But the real threat to peace and stability is the Israeli government which has rejected any and all proposals that call for an end to their assault on Gaza, withdrawal of their forces, a role for the PA in Gaza, and any suggestion that Palestinian independence or sovereignty be on the agenda. It is this intransigence that must be addressed. Instead of placing the burden of reform solely on the Palestinians, the U.S., Western Europe, and the Arab states should take concrete measures to force Israel to end its occupation, impose an international trusteeship with a peacekeeping force in the occupied territories, and make a long-term commitment to assisting Palestinians in establishing representative governance in an independent sovereign state—all of which our polling shows majorities or pluralities of Palestinians support.
"Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."
Israeli occupation forces enforced a ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Thursday by storming three schools in East Jerusalem, terrorizing children and staff as they shuttered the facilities and drawing condemnation from human rights defenders.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, heavily armed Israeli security forces raided the schools in the Shu'fat refugee camp in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, detaining one UNRWA employee and forcing around 550 children out of their classrooms as the invaders closed the facilities.
"As a result, UNRWA was forced to evacuate all children across the six schools it runs in East Jerusalem," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said. "Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."
"Storming schools and forcing them shut is a blatant disregard of international law," Lazzarini added. "These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations. By enforcing closure orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities are denying Palestinian children their basic right to learn. UNRWA schools must continue to be open to safeguard an entire generation of children."
The International Court of Justice—which is also weighing a genocide case against Israel over the U.S.-backed Gaza onslaught—is considering whether the Israeli government's ban on UNRWA violates international law.
Hundreds of UNRWA staffers and their relatives have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. Israel has bombed many UNRWA schools-turned-shelters in Gaza, including a Tuesday "double-tap" airstrike on school in the al-Bureij refugee camp that killed at least 30 of the more than 2,000 people sheltering there.
UNRWA officials also accuse Israeli forces of torturing kidnapped agency workers in a bid to elicit false confessions that they took part in the October 7, 2023 attack. UNRWA and much of the international community have condemned such allegations as baseless.
In the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall in January. Israel says the invasion is targeting resistance fighters largely based in West Bank refugee camps. However, tens of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced by the offensive, which has killed numerous civilians.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 900 Palestinians including nearly 200 children have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023. Attacks by Israeli settler-colonists, sometimes aided by Israeli troops, have also killed, wounded, displaced, and terrorized West Bank residents as Israel's far-right government forges ahead with plans to steal more land from Palestinians, ethnically cleanse them, and open the door to further Israeli colonization.