![\"9154299550_5e95f151fc_z\"](\"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/9154299550_5e95f151fc_z-e1377540544966.jpg\")
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Human Rights Watch<\/a>:<\/p>\n Israeli military forces should cease actions in a West Bank Bedouin community that were apparently intended to displace the residents without lawful justification. The military demolished all homes in the community on September 16, 2013, and blocked four attempts by humanitarian groups to provide shelters, with soldiers using force against residents, humanitarian workers, and foreign diplomats on September 20. Under international humanitarian law in effect in the occupied West Bank, the deliberate unlawful forced transfer of a population is a war crime.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly just two days ago, he outlined two issues as top priorities in the Middle East: Iran’s nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. After getting distracted by a brief campaign for war in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry is refocused on Israel-Palestine, saying just yesterday that he brokered an agreement to “intensify<\/a>” negotiations.<\/p>\n The official basis for negotiations is two states for two people.\u00a0And yet, Israel continues to reject the premise of talks by bulldozing more Palestinian homes and building new illegal settlements<\/a> on Palestinian land.<\/p>\n As Yousef Munayyer wrote recently<\/a> in The New Yorker<\/em>,\u00a0“Everything about the Israeli state\u2019s actual behavior suggests it has no intention of ever leaving the West Bank.”<\/p>\n So why engage in the charade of negotiations? In an earlier piece<\/a> at The Daily Beast<\/em>,\u00a0Munayyer explains that,\u00a0\u201cIsrael needs negotiations to provide cover for its continued colonization of Palestinian territory and create the impression that its presence in the West Bank is temporary and its withdrawal around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe absence of negotiations,\u201d Munayyer adds, \u201ckeeps the light focused on the apartheid reality, instead putting Israel in increasingly hot water as civil society and states continue to reject its subjugation of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, a\u00a0Palestinian legislator and Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, agrees. This week he told reporters<\/a> that the vaunted Oslo Agreement “allowed Israel [to] implement a system of apartheid, by significantly escalating its settlement activities, and the theft of Palestinian lands, Israel is using the peace deal as a cover-up for its violations.”<\/p>\n The settlement “led to disastrous consequences allowing Israel to divide the occupied territories into areas A, B and C, giving it the change to build and expand settlements, and the Apartheid Wall\u201d, he added. \u201cThe wall was build 25 Kilometers deep into the West Bank, isolating and confiscating large areas of lands and orchards, and isolated Jerusalem from its surrounding Arab areas.”<\/p>\n