 Since its independence 250 years ago, 1.5 billion acres from a total of 1.556 billion acres of land have been appropriated by the United States of America from the North American indigenous population to around 96.4%. 75 years into its life as an independent nation, the U.S. had by then overwhelmed 40% of the Native American territories. After 75 years following its own independence after the partitioning plan by the United Nations Special Committee for Palestine in 1947, Israel has since then occupied 45% of Palestinian lands. These two numbers are not too dissimilar. Actually, Israel has been more successful and is slightly ahead of the U.S. program in displacing a people and dispossessing them of their rights and lands. What lands remain for Palestinians today are hanging on by a thread, the Razas trip and West Bank. The similarities between the eradication of the indigenous American population by the United States and the displacement of the Palestinian people from their lands by Israel don't stop with the identical and systematic occupation of one people's lands by a foreign colonial invader. No, the similarities continue along many lines. Both set in motion laws to remove the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands. The U.S.A. with the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and Israel, the law of return in 1950. Both would have an unforgivable day of disaster. The Native Americans with their trail of tears and the Palestinian people with their al-Nekba. Both colonial powers would go on to treat the natives as second-class citizens and at most times didn't consider them citizens at all. These strategies were so indistinguishable, it's as if Zionists in the late 19th century studied and extracted how best to process the land appropriation and dehumanization of a people committed by the American expansionists. And the thing for me that makes the resemblance between these two colonial approaches so accurate is how they both exhibited and still exhibit the dynamics of frontier societies towards the realization of their end goals. For the United States, anything west of the Mississippi River was theirs, irrespective of its inhabitants. And for Israel, it was the Palestinian territories. As part of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, the West Bank and the Rezestrup were lands designated for the establishment of a fully autonomous Palestinian state. This was the main premise for the two-state solution that many keep referring to. And as part of the same accords, Israel was to cease the expansion of its settlements into the West Bank with a scheduled withdrawal of settlers from approximately 11% of the West Bank's total area of 5,655 km2. The committed withdrawals never happened, and the settlement expansions never stopped. Let's take a short step back and rewind history a little. The West Bank, Rezestrup, and East Jerusalem were Palestinian territories that were occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War in 1967. At this time, this territory was fully populated by Arab Palestinians, both Christian, the minority, and Muslim, the majority, and without any Jewish population. And with this occupation, practically immediately, Israel began its settlement policy of the West Bank and what now was referred to by Israelis as Judea and Samaria. Although considered illegal as per international law, but in defense of its own actions, Israel justified itself with a position that the West Bank was not part of Jordan's or any other nation's sovereignty and hence rendered the Geneva Convention 4, which specifically addresses the protection of civilians in occupied territories, inapplicable. Therefore, Israel's settlements of the Palestinian territories was kosher. And with this mindset is how Israel again matches up well with regard to the 19th century U.S. expansionist policy of Frontierism. What is Frontierism? It's the concept where a frontier is the line separating civilization from the wilderness. And the clear intention is to win over such wilderness by hook or crook. Any inhabitants are considered less than human and undeserving. And this is how Israel perceives the West Bank since the very beginning of its occupation in 1967 as a wilderness that needs taming. Israel will tell you that the settlement of the West Bank is a matter of national security as a part of its dealings with a perpetual existential threat posed by the uncivilized Palestinian savages. And how has Israel handled the threat? By continuously settling Palestinian lands since 1967, ignoring any calls by the United Nations or the International Court of Justice to cease and desist. In 1967, there weren't any Israelis living in the West Bank. And within a short period of time, settlements in the West Bank started to pick up speed and by the time the Oslo Accords came to light, Israel had not only introduced a new population into the occupied Palestinian territories, it had positioned itself as the main land authority, controlling every aspect of life within the West Bank. At the occupation in 1967, 750,000 Palestinians were living their lives in the West Bank. Israelis? Zero. In 1993, when the peace accords were signed, the Palestinian population had grown to 2.1 million. While a new settler population of 111,600 Israeli settlers had quickly inhabited the territory within 26 years. And as of 2024, the Palestinian population has grown to 2,764,000, suggesting a growth of 6.5% per annum, while the Israeli settler population increased to 520,000, meaning a growth of 50.5% per annum. The misconception that most people have is that with the Oslo Accords, the Rezestrip and West Bank were territories free of Israeli occupation. This is a complete misunderstanding of the reality on the ground. Even after the accords, Israel controlled 82% of the West Bank territories, control meaning governance in terms of legal, administrative, and security. Such policy of annexation used a strategy of the declaration by the Israeli government of Palestinian territories as state land, or land for military need, or declaration of land as abandoned by its residents, or their expropriation of lands for public needs. And to further confirm the status of these lands as Israeli, a constant influx into the West Bank by Israeli settlers has been taking place, thereby negating any real possibility of a two-state solution, if such a possibility ever really did exist. I'm really struggling to understand how you can have a two-state solution that is preached by the Western mediators as the preferred endgame, when the second and significantly less powerful state will soon have no line to exist in. Today we've decided that we are going to more or less take things into our own hands, take a little bit more profit, a little more territory, and sit where we feel we rightfully belong. Do you have permission from the government to settle in Jericho? Permission from the government? I don't think that a Jew needs permission to live in Jericho from anyone. And who are these Israeli settler occupiers that seem to be in never-ending supply? Well, of course they have to all be Jewish, and most are of the ultra-orthodox denomination. They're mostly from lower-income local populations or recent immigrants from Western nations who are incentivized by Israeli political organizations such as the World Zionist Organization and the Gush Imunim initially, and more recently by the Yesha Council and the Jewish National Fund. Incentivized how? Well, by being granted substantial entitlements and financial benefits from the ministries of construction and housing, interior, education, industry and trade, labor and social affairs, and finance, as well as from the Israel Lands Administration. So if you're a West Bank settler, your life is pretty much subsidized by the Israeli government. And it is these Israeli settlers that I consider the frontiersmen of the 20th and 21st century, the cowboys of Israel who will with full ease commit crimes and atrocities towards the natives, simply because they can. Being in the West Bank meant that there was no single just rule of law. Two sets existed, a civil and just legal system for Israeli settlers and for the indigenous population, military rule. It meant that should chaos ensue, and it did very often, the more powerful would automatically dominate. Such entitlement has led to Israeli settlers taking the law into their own hands without any repercussions and in most cases under the watchful eye and protection of the most moral army in the world, the IDF. Repeatedly, the Palestinian populations have been evicted from their rightful lands. Homes their families have lived in for tens of generations. Homes demolished not by the government, but by malicious colonialists and their bulldozers, again and again. And then these Palestinians have to move on, historic house keys in hand as refugees. Don't forget to join the Chronicles by subscribing to the channel and like it if you do actually like it. And by clicking the notification button, you'll be up to date on all new releases. If one believes that Palestinians are living in what appears to be a relative peace in the West Bank, then I would say that they are extremely naive. The native population are being strangled year after next. No ability to move, no ability to grow, and no ability to sustain life. How? Well, because beyond the aggressions of the settlers towards the local inhabitants, there is a governmental administrative strategy by Israel to choke the Palestinian population into submission and to leaving and abandoning any beliefs and principles that these lands did indeed belong to them. This policy has seen the restriction of transportation around the West Bank. If you're a Palestinian, you aren't free to move around, neither for work nor for pleasure. Military checkpoints at every major artery, exposing the local population to extreme detainment, humiliation and dehumanization. The settler expansionist strategy and carefully designed road networks has made sure to cut off Palestinian territories from each other, from centers of commerce and public institutions. And if you, as a Palestinian council or individual, had an aspiration to build a public or private edifice in your town, then your building permit application, in almost all cases, was rejected. These remnant Palestinian pockets of towns are the new native reservations of the West, if you may. Where no rules apply to the colonialist settlers and where no consequences take place should injustices be committed. Palestinians in the West Bank have lost their rights a long time ago. Some, and unfortunately increasingly more, have been and will continue to lose their lives simply because they inhabit their own lands. But where invading settlers are allowed free reign to suppress, intimidate and kill the native population. And the shocker is that this is happening within a supposed democracy. This dynamic didn't start recently. This has been going on since the occupation in 1967. There is truly no West Bank that is ready to accommodate a Palestinian nation. This is a myth for public consumption. A myth that is proven in the growing numbers of settlers that continuously increase every year. And a reality that is forced upon the helpless weak. No, there is no West Bank anymore. There's only the wild, wild West.