“Logic of Elimination” Drives Israel’s Policies in the West Bank, Report Finds

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A major new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem titled “The Elimination Project” accuses Israel of “dramatically intensifying its attacks on every aspect of Palestinian life in the West Bank.” “For too long, Israel’s policies in the West Bank have been treated or looked at as isolated events,” says Ori Givati, director of international relations at B’Tselem. “We actually find that there is one very coherent logic behind all of them, and this is the logic of elimination of Palestinian collective life in the West Bank.” Givati says tactics against Palestinians intensified with Israel’s 2022 election and again after October 7, 2023, adding that “we are definitely seeing a lot of the mechanisms, the tools that were used and are used still … in Gaza, being implemented in the West Bank.” We also speak with Mohammad Sha’ban, a Palestinian farmer from Halhul in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank who says 11 gates and seven settler outposts have been installed around Halhul since 2025. “We cannot reach our lands. We cannot go outside Halhul. They open only one gate from 8 o’clock until 5 o’clock every day,” says Sha’ban. Settlers “attack farmers, beat farmers … damaging our cars, also damaging our fields, uprooting our trees.” TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Anjali Kamat. ANJALI KAMAT: A major new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem titled “The Elimination Project” accuses Israel of systematically dismantling the conditions that allow Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to function as a community. The report says Israel is, quote, “dramatically intensifying its attacks on every aspect of Palestinian life in the West Bank,” including, quote, “the ability to get to work, take children to school or university, receive medical treatment or municipal services, meet family and friends, cultivate land or go on vacation — routine activities that make up human life.” This is B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak in a video that accompanied the report. YULI NOVAK: [translated] Israel is dismantling the basic conditions needed for collective Palestinian existence in the West Bank. Our new report “The Elimination Project” shows how this mechanism works and how over the past three years, it has become more lethal, violent and explicit. Come with us to the West Bank to see for yourself. The Elimination Project in the West Bank operates through five domains of action that work together and reinforce each other: killing, violence, intimidation, movement restrictions, economic strangulation, social and political destruction, ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover. These are all parts of a system with one aim: to ensure Jewish supremacy and eliminate the Palestinian collective. AMY GOODMAN: That’s part of a video accompanying the new B’Tselem report “The Elimination Project: Israel’s Systematic Dismantling of Palestinian Collective Life in the West Bank.” Leading celebrities have joined B’Tselem in calling for the international community to intervene on behalf of Palestinians. This video features Cynthia Nixon, Susan Sarandon, Michael Stipe and the Emmy award-winning Hannah Einbinder speaking alongside B’Tselem researchers. HANNAH EINBINDER: Israel is carrying out a campaign to eliminate Palestinian collective existence in the West Bank. CYNTHIA NIXON: It is happening right now. SUSAN SARANDON: Another violent attack. HANNAH EINBINDER: Another killing. MICHAEL STIPE: Another home demolished. SUSAN SARANDON: Another home set on fire. CYNTHIA NIXON: Another community displaced from its land. MICHAEL STIPE: Another checkpoint blocking the way. MOHAMMAD ROMANEH: Another olive grove destroyed. MICHAEL STIPE: What is happening in the West Bank is not a series of isolated events. CYNTHIA NIXON: When you pay attention and connect the dots, the picture is clear. MAYA FLOHIN: They are all part of a single political project. MICHAEL STIPE: U.S. taxpayer dollars are funding these crimes. MOHAMMAD ROMANEH: This project is rooted in an apartheid system that has been in place for generations. HANNAH EINBINDER: Since October 2023, it has accelerated dramatically. YAIR DVIR: Its implementation is more violent and more unrestrained. CYNTHIA NIXON: The international community must end the impunity that allows it to continue. SUSAN SARANDON: The world must act to stop Israel’s Elimination Project in the West Bank. ANJALI KAMAT: Since October 7, 2023, at least 1,107 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank. Over the weekend, an Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian man in the leg during a confrontation between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers in the West Bank town of Faqqua. AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined now by two guests. In Tel Aviv, Ori Givati is with us, B’Tselem director of international relations. He is a former Israeli soldier who served as a tank commander primarily in the West Bank from 2010 to 2013. And in the occupied West Bank, we’re joined by Mohammad Sha’ban, a Palestinian farmer from Halhul, just north of Hebron. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Ori, let’s begin with you on the breadth of this report. Talk about what you are calling “The Elimination Project” and what is happening right now in the West Bank. ORI GIVATI: Thank you for having me. For too long, Israel’s policies in the West Bank have been treated or looked at as isolated events — the violence of settler militias, the home demolitions, military raids, and so forth. When we look at Israel’s policies in the West Bank together and fully examine them, we actually find that there is one very coherent logic behind all of them, and this is the logic of elimination of Palestinian collective life in the West Bank. This logic operates through five mechanisms that we identified: violence and intimidation, movement restrictions, ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover, economic strangulation, and social and political destruction. Through all of these mechanism that work together simultaneously and also reinforce one another, Israel is systematically dismantling the ability of Palestinians to live as a collective in that land. As you mentioned in your introduction, it creates a situation that Palestinian life are just almost inviable. It starts from your home, your way to work, your way to school, your ability to visit your family, your ability to raise your olive grove and so forth. Simultaneously to all of that, Israelis is also entrenching its own takeover of that land and also moving its own people and expanding the settlements, the outposts, the farms and so forth, to take over the space that Palestinian lives are becoming more and more inviable in. ANJALI KAMAT: But Ori, this project of settler colonialism, dispossession, settlement, it’s not new. Talk about how in the report you connect what’s happening in the West Bank to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and what has happened in the West Bank, this escalation since 2023. ORI GIVATI: In the report, we talk about the decades but we also definitely talk about how since October 2023, since the election of this government in 2022, the scale, the speed, the openness of all those different elements significantly intensified. The logic of elimination comes in practice in its most extreme form in the genocide in Gaza and it’s taking place across the territories that Israel controls. We are definitely seeing a lot of the mechanisms, the tools that were used — and are used still; the genocide is ongoing as we speak in Gaza — being implemented in the West Bank. Practices like aerial bombardment, for example, that we haven’t seen in the West Bank for many, many years, are back in practice. We’re talking about in Gaza over 20,000 minors, kids, teenagers were killed by Israel as part of its genocide. In the West Bank we are also seeing vast killings of minors. It’s in a different scale but the practices are very, very similar, and the logic of elimination is all-encompassing across the territories. ANJALI KAMAT: Ori, can you talk about, what you describe as The Elimination Project, how it relates to Bezalel Smotrich’s plan, the Decisive Plan? I want to go back to the video that came out with the new report, “Elimination Project: Israel’s Systematic Dismantling of Palestinian Collective Life in the West Bank.” This is a clip of Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, addressing the Knesset back in 2017. BEZALEL SMOTRICH: The basis for anyone who wants to stay is to abandon all national aspirations or the desire to express them here, because there is no place here for national self-definition of anyone but the Jewish people. ANJALI KAMAT: Ori, your response? And if you can explain Smotrich’s kind of plan and how that relates to what’s happening today? ORI GIVATI: Yeah. In 2017, Bezalel Smotrich publishes his Decisive Plan. The plan basically talks about victory through settlement. It’s one of the main concepts there. Then he talks about how Palestinians under Israel’s control have basically three options left according to Smotrich: either to submit to Jewish supremacy and apartheid, leave, or face the military consequences of the decision to resist. And when we look at Israel’s Elimination Project in the West Bank, we are seeing many of this kind of blueprint that Smotrich publishes in 2017 implemented on the ground. Look, when Smotrich published this in 2017, he didn’t have as much power as he has now. Today we’re talking about a person who is a minister in the — Israeli minister of defense which holds significant power over the West Bank. And he was appointed to that position very knowingly by the Prime Minister Netanyahu. So the person that designed this blueprint, this plan, now holds the power to implement many of its elements. And he’s, by the way, very outspoken about it — as we speak, these days — about his plan, about how he is intending to implement it. Now, when we look at what’s happening on the ground in the West Bank, we are seeing exactly that. We are seeing violence by the military and violence by settler militias that are also supported by the entire Israeli apparatus and the military, causing the displacement of thousands of Palestinians in communities across the West Bank. Over 66 communities were displaced since October 2023 through the violence of settler militias that are supported by the state. Another 33,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced through the violence of the military in Palestinian refugee camps since the beginning of 2025. This is just one example of how his blueprint is actually taking place on the ground. AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Mohammad Sha’ban into the conversation, a Palestinian farmer. We are speaking to you in Halhul in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank. Can you talk about your life there, your family, your community, how you’ve been affected overall by the Israeli occupation but by these gangs of Israeli settlers? If you can explain what has happened in Halhul? MOHAMMAD SHA’BAN: Good afternoon — or good morning maybe in your area. I would like to thank you for having me in this meeting or in this broadcast. I am from Halhul. Halhul is a city north to Hebron. In Halhul, our main business or our main work is as farmers. We are planting grapes. We are producing too [unclear to transcriber] many [unclear to transcriber] products with the grapes’ leaves and the grapes’ fruit. Before October 7, we don’t have any settlement in Halhul. Halhul is located in Route 60. This Route 60 joining like Be’er Sheva to Jerusalem, it is crossing Halhul. Our land is separated, half of it before Route 60 and the other half is after Route 60. The Halhul area is 37 [unclear to transcriber] dunums. Actually a majority of this land — our — 4,000 [unclear to transcriber] dunums only the city; the others is agricultural land. Sorry. ANJALI KAMAT: — acre, for our viewers who may not understand dunums. But Mohammad, can you talk about — as you are talking about your life in Halhul and your occupation as a farmer, what has been the impact of settlers on your life, especially in recent months? MOHAMMAD SHA’BAN: Actually in 2025, they start the first settlement in Halhul. Now we have seven outposts. We lost 14,000 [unclear to transcriber] dunums from our land which is the richest land in agriculture, the best land for us. And this season, we lost 40 million shekel. In Halhul also, they installed 11 gates around Halhul. We cannot reach our lands. We cannot go outside Halhul. They open only one gate from 8:00 until 5:00 every day. Everyone in Halhul started suffering because — at the beginning I said, we are fully dependent in agriculture, especially after October 7. We used to have some people working in Israel and they don’t have permissions to go now, so everybody come back to his land, to work in his land because it makes some money for the people to continue their life. So with this big lost — actually, as I told you, around 40 million shekels, around 70% [unclear to transcriber] from our product every year. ANJALI KAMAT: Part of the report also talks about the economic strangulation of Palestinian communities. But Mohammad, can you talk about what kinds of interactions you have personally had with the settlers and with soldiers and your children as well? MOHAMMAD SHA’BAN: Yes. The farmers, they didn’t stop going to their lands. When they go to their land, at the beginning, the settlers — if there are like a few people, the settlers attack them, beat them. We have — I documented 60 cases when they attack farmers. It’s between seriously injured or injured in simple way. Damaging our cars. Also damaging our fields, uprooting our trees. Many, many lands, we cannot now reach it at all. We didn’t work in it. The other lands which we manage to reach it — now the season start. When the season — the season start last month; now is the season for the grapes. Actually this lands [unclear to transcriber] collecting the product all day damage the product. Our loss, ya’ni, it’s affected everything in Halhul. Imagine, ya’ni, what make Halhul a special case, because this thing happen only in six months. We have all of this loss happen only in six months. Nobody even think about it. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask Ori Givati of B’Tselem what you’re calling for at this point. The British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has announced new policies against illegal Israeli settlements including a ban on imports, targeted sanctions, a prohibition on advertising stolen land and more. The new sanctions announced in conjunction with Canada and France. But is this enough? ORI GIVATI: Look, the steps from last week are definitely a good step in the right direction. We are seeing for the first time a move from empty statements and condemnations, which is what we are used to seeing from the international community, to something that looks like real true consequences. What must happen is that these consequences will not only focus on the settlement project. This is exactly what we are talking about in the report. The settlement project is not separate from The Elimination Project; it is actually is significant mechanism within The Elimination Project. In order to truly challenge the system, to truly stop Israel and make sure that Israel truly has consequences for its crimes against the Palestinian people across the territories under its control, we need to see measures that target the system. This is the move that needs to happen by the international community, this move from empty statement condemnations into measures that target the system itself. ANJALI KAMAT: What does that look like, Ori? How do you target the system? This has been going on for years and you say has escalated rapidly in recent years. What exactly are you calling for? What needs to happen? ORI GIVATI: Look, the international community has such a vast array of tools under its disposal. Different policymakers and decision-makers know exactly the type of tools they can use. At this point, the problem is not what to do; the problem is that there isn’t true political will to do something. We are seeing this beginning of change, right? We are seeing it in the U.K. We are seeing it in other places in Europe. But we need more of that change. What to do is truly not a problem. The problem right now is that nothing has been done. And this is what we are calling for — to go through this transformation and truly face this Israeli system for what it is. It’s a system that is committing a genocide in Gaza. The Elimination Project in the West Bank. It is managing torture camps and detention centers, across the detention centers, for Palestinians. And truly treat it as such. The measures are known for everybody; the political will is missing. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we are speaking to you from the United States and in our headlines today, we reported the Trump administration approved a $2.8 billion package selling 2,000-pound bombs in Israel. The sale including 40,000 bombs funded by foreign ministry, financing a program in which the U.S. gives Israel taxpayer money that Israel spends to get U.S.-made bombs. Your final comment on the significance of the U.S. support for Israel? ORI GIVATI: There is no question that the U.S. is the primary enabler of the genocide in Gaza, of The Elimination Project in the West Bank, and basically of everything that Israel is doing. We are seeing amazing progress within the U.S. society. You mentioned it in your introduction — the moving steps by artists to publicly resist the genocide. This is an amazing process we are seeing within the U.S. society. What must happen now is the translation of this process into actual actions by decision-makers in order to, again, stop the Israeli genocide and stop the Elimination Project in the West Bank. AMY GOODMAN: Ori Givati, we want to thank you for being with us, B’Tselem director of international relations. We’ll link to your new report, The Elimination Project. He is speaking to us from Tel Aviv. And Mohammad Sha’ban, a Palestinian farmer, speaking to us from Halhul, just north of Hebron. Coming up, as Amnesty International reiterates its call for a ceasefire in the U.S.-Iran War, Amnesty has accused Iranian authorities of committing crimes against humanity during the bloody suppression of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising. Stay with us. 25 Years of Truthout: An important fundraising appeal This September, Truthout is celebrating 25 years of publication. 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