Interview with Louzia Bazar: The "Pens" System and the Colonial Engineering of Separation and Connection in the West Bank
In an interview with "Arab 48", researcher Louzia Bazar discusses her study on the "pens system" in the West Bank, where she argues that Israel, as a settler-colonial state, aims to replace Palestinians with settlers. She notes that the number of settlers has exceeded 778,000, and that Israel has established a security system and infrastructure that has turned the West Bank into two separate societies: connected settlers and isolated Palestinians, with these policies escalating after October 7.
In an interview with "Arab 48", researcher Louzia Bazar discusses her study titled "The Pens System: Colonial Engineering of Separation and Connection in the West Bank", published in the latest issue of the journal "Al-Janoub". Bazar says that Israel, as a settler-colonial state, primarily aims to replace the settler society with the indigenous Palestinian population, similar to what happened in the territories occupied in 1948. The study indicates that after occupying the West Bank in 1967, Israel employed settlement plans to reshape the Palestinian geographical space and dismantle its economic, social, and demographic structure through complex legal and military tools. The "Yigal Allon Plan" was a starting point for controlling the West Bank, based on a strategic vision for its settlement under the pretext of protecting "Israel's security", while taking demographic threats into account. Israel continues this policy by intensifying settlement, with the number of settlers exceeding 778,000 living on Palestinian lands in the West Bank. Due to the failure of Zionist settler-colonialism to remove or deport all Palestinians from their land, Bazar says, Israel resorted to subjugating those who remained under its control system. Israel established an integrated security system and settlement infrastructure, turning the West Bank into two separate societies: a connected settler society within settlement blocs linked by a wide network of open bypass roads, and a fragmented Palestinian society confined to isolated enclaves. These policies escalated after October 7.