Under Cover of War: Israel’s Land Seizure and Settlement Expansion in the West Bank

The Evergreen State College’s Professor Steve Niva will discuss Israel’s escalating seizure of Palestinian land to establish more Jewish settlements across the Occupied West Bank during the war in Gaza. Although Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, armed Israeli settlers backed by the army are seizing land and displacing Palestinian civilians and farmers through force. Former University of Washington student-activist Aysa Aysenur was recently killed in the Palestinian village of Beita, this in addition to several other U.S. citizens who have been killed in the West Bank. Israel’s settlement expansion also threatens what’s left of a possible Palestinian state that is necessary for the widely accepted “two-state solution” to the conflict. Israel settlement expansion may be the prelude to Israel’s full annexation of the territory if extremists in the current Israeli government prevail.  Professor Niva will discuss the tragic case of Aysa Aysenur based on testimony from her colleagues, provide an overview of Israel’s recent West Bank settlement expansion and discuss the threat Israeli settlements pose to the “two-state solution” as a basis for eventual peace in the Middle East.

Steve Niva is a professor of Middle East politics at The Evergreen State College and former editor of Middle East Report magazine. He has researched and written about Israeli settlement expansion and has lived and worked in Israel and the West Bank, including at St. George’s College in Jerusalem.