Refugee Camps 'Demolished': Normal Tuesday in the West Bank
The BBC headline laments Palestinians forcefully displaced from West Bank refugee camps, citing a Human Rights Watch report. They detail the current demolitions as if this aggression is an anomaly. The inconvenient truth, however, is that this 'forced displacement' did not begin last week, but in 1948 with the Nakba when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes to
create the state of Israel. These 'refugee camps' are, in fact, the remnants of that original expulsion, making constant displacement the very condition of their existence. While the BBC highlights current human rights violations, they often gloss over the US role in enabling these policies. For context: U.S. aid to Israel stands at $3.8 billion annually, overwhelmingly military assistance. This
funding doesn't merely coincidently coincide with Israel's military operations and systematic demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure; it underwrites it. One wonders if calling these actions 'violations' without naming the enablers is journalism, or just polite hand-wringing. According to the Congressional Research Service, at least 68% of Senate Republicans and 64% of Senate Democrats
voted for the National Security Act of 2024 (HR 815), which included $14 billion more in unconditional aid to Israel. The camps are being 'demolished' because the funds keep flowing.