Palestine weekly wrap: World sanctions settlers, Israel funds settlements

This week, moves by France to bar a senior Israeli minister, six Western states sanctioned settler networks and an Amnesty International accusation that Israel was implementing a “state-sponsored” campaign of ethnic cleansing in a drive to effectively annex parts of the West Bank, did little to restrain Israel. The Israeli cabinet advanced the funding of dozens of new settlements, moved to legalise the very outposts whose residents terrorise Palestinian communities, and took a step it had avoided for three decades: establishing a permanent military base inside areas of the West Bank supposedly under full Palestinian administrative control. Recommended Stories list of 3 items end of list Mounting censure, deepening entrenchment On June 9 , France banned Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, from entering the country, alongside four settler organisation leaders and 21 individual settlers, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot citing Smotrich’s promotion of West Bank annexation, the resettlement of Gaza and the engineered “economic collapse” of the Palestinian Authority. The same day, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Norway – coordinating with Australia and New Zealand – sanctioned networks financing settler violence. On June 10 , Amnesty International accused Israel of a years-long, state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank designed to accelerate annexation; the Israeli military rejected the charge. …