The real story, however, is not In Israel's military offensive, their immediate plans to construct a "security zone" on Gaza's border to the north, the implementation of the puppet Palestinian Authority against its own people, or efforts to disarm legitimate resistance in Gaza. The real story is the genocidal war Israel is waging with weapons of concrete and Caterpillar bulldozers.

I just returned from a trip to Palestine and the most common word spoken during my trip was sijjen, the Arabic word for prison. Strikingly, this was not a reference to the growing number of Palestinians who have been illegally detained, imprisoned, and tortured in Israeli jails (numbering about 70-80% of the Palestinian male population). Rather, the word was being used to describe the conversion of the West Bank into one large open air prison divided into concentration camps controlled by Israelis. The Annexation Wall, now visible in almost every sector of the West Bank, in combination with Israeli-only military bypass roads and expanding Israeli settlements, forms the infrastructure for this prison complex as well as the greatest land grab in Palestine since 1967.

Case in point is the small village of An Nu'uman located in the strategic area between Al Quds and Beit Lahem (Bethlehem).

This photo of An-Nu'man village’s farmlands was taken from Al-Khas, looking across the small valley between the villages. It is from May of 2003, as wall construction was beginning, but before it had reached the village itself. credit: Noah Cohen

Families in this small Palestinian village (numbering about 15 houses) trace the deeds of their homes back to the Ottoman Empire. The Israelis have been trying to remove the villagers of An Nu'uman from their land since the 1967 occupation of the remainder of Palestine. An Nu'uman is now surrounded on all sides by a combination of the Annexation Wall to the east and south, an Israeli military bypass road to the north, and a Jewish settlement that is to be built to the west called Har Homa Dalit (an expansion of the large Har Homa settlement). With the construction of each Israeli fortification, Palestinian land is "confiscated" for settler use. Since Israeli strategy has not yet succeeded in driving these Palestinians from their homes, about two months ago, the Israeli Border Patrol set the local olive grove ablaze and prevented Palestinians from putting out the fire.

An-Nu'uman village, September of 2005. The wall was built directly through the fertile valley between the villages of An-Nu'uman and Al-Khas, destroying crops and olive groves. Here the "wall" is actually a two lane military road, with an electrified fence that includes cameras, motion sensors, and coils of razor wire. credit:Noah Cohen

The Israeli government has announced plans to construct a settlement at Bab al-Zahera area, in the old city of Al Quds. They have also ordered the leveling of 88 Palestinian homes in the Silwan neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem, in order to create "public gardens" for Israelis. An additional 92 Palestinian homes are scheduled for demolition in Abu Dis. At the same time, Israel plans to build 3500 new settler homes in the largest settlement in the West Bank, Ma'ale Adumim just northeast of Abu Dis.

As colonial expansion cuts the West Bank in half from West Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim creating the de facto annexation of more land into Jewish "Greater Jerusalem", plans have recently been announced for the annexation of over one half million dunums (125,000 acres) of Palestinian land south of Khalil (Hebron) through further Wall construction, establishing a new de facto border in the south.

Just south of this region, within the Green Line (the borders marking Palestinian land occupied in 1948), the process of colonization and ethnic cleansing also continues. 35, 000 Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab face imminent home demolition and expulsion to make way for incoming settlers from Gaza.

Meanwhile, in the north, Qalquilya remains completely enclosed by the Wall. Tulkarem and Nablus are also effectively enclosed by the Wall, military bypass roads, settlements, and checkpoints.

This process of land confiscation, home demolition, Annexation Wall and bypass road construction, and settlement expansion prove that Israel's "disengagement plan" is really just the same old colonial song from the early 1900's: the establishment of a settler state through the ethnic cleansing of the Arab population.

Whereas the Western media and human rights activists acknowledge certain violations of Palestinian human rights in Israel's post 1967 military occupation, the genocidal project itself remains unaddressed. At the center of this project is a colonial settler population and infrastructure dedicated to erasing all traces of Palestinian life and culture in the region. The material relationship of these settlers to Palestinians will continue to be genocidal as long as they continue to occupy stolen Palestinian land.

In response, Palestinians have continued their history of ongoing resistance to colonization. They live on their land at risk of death, wait hours at death trap check points to go to work or school, demonstrate as Israeli soldiers shoot to kill, and take up arms to liberate land from settlement. Since settlers are and always have been the real occupying army in Israel's genocidal project, resistance to settlers will be the fundamental determinant in the struggle for the liberation of all of historic Palestine.

The writer lives in Somerville