Apartheid Behind A Partial Paywall

A few months after Prime Minister Netanyahu assembled the most right-wing government in Israeli history at the end of 2022, Alison Speri wrote an article in April of 2023 for The Intercept that begins with the story of Masafer Yatta.

Speri’s “Lab of Oppression” is behind a partial paywall for The Intercept. You can access a particular number articles a month, and after that you can join The Intercept for free by adding your email address. You might or might not be able to access this article.

The story begins in Masafer Yatta. A collection of halmets in the Hebron hills surrounding Yatta, Masafer Yatta is one of many areas across the occupied West Bank where the Israeli state has for decades forced out Palestinians and replaced them with Israeli settler. The goal, as Netanyahu “stated plainly” after returning to power, “is to give the state absolute control over what he called ‘all areas of the land of Israel’ – including land widely expected to one day form the territory of a Palestinian state.”

Lab of Oppression is a story of people, structural oppression, and the laws designed to oppress people. It’s a reminder that Palestinians have long faced oppression, as both whether they’re citizens or refugees under international law. Israel has done everything it has can to not implement peace agreements, and to maintain and increase modes of oppression against occupied Palestinians. The increased violence over the last fourteen months, which can’t be called a war, was precipitated by this oppression, and has allowed settlers, with state backing, to increase (undefined) all areas of the land of Israel.