Part and parcel of the settlements

12/03/07

A PALESTINIAN VIEW

by Ghassan Khatib

Israel is currently having an easy time expanding its settlements and constructing the separation wall that is snaking its way in and around the occupied West Bank.

Partly this is due to the ongoing internal Palestinian problems that have distracted the focus of Palestinian leaders from their struggle against these colonialist Israeli policies.

Partly it is due to the absence of any firm international commitment to the principles of international law under which both the wall and Jewish settlements in occupied territory are illegal.

In the Palestinian perception the separation wall is, at least where it veers into occupied territory, a part of the overall settlement project. If there were no settlements, the wall could have been built on the green line and cause no Palestinian objections. But Israel is building part of the wall inside the occupied territories because of the existence of settlements. Thus, the wall is part of the settlement project.

The ongoing construction of the wall has been aided by the rather weak attitude of the United States and Europe, the only parties with influence on Israel. These parties have singularly failed to impress upon Israel that commitment to international law and the findings of the International Court of Justice are important factors determining the relations of these countries with Israel. This leaves the impression that neither the US nor the EU cares whether Israel abides by international legality.

This is a regrettable repetition of history. In the mid-1990s, Israel's illegal settlement program in occupied territory was the single most damaging blow to the peace process, and the international community's failure to seriously address the settlement issue was a major contributing factor.

There have been several other negative consequences of the wall. In many areas, the wall has created enclaves that have almost completely curtailed any freedom of movement for Palestinians inside them. Access to health and education services has been sharply reduced, as has the ability of a majority of Palestinians to exercise their right of worship, particularly in Jerusalem. The increased hardship resulting from the wall has also caused more anger and further radicalization among Palestinians.

The repercussions for the economy have been predictably dramatic, exacerbating the general economic deterioration. The most damaging economic consequence is the transformation of the economic boundaries between the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel from a soft into a hard border. Over the last 40 years, the Palestinian economy became completely dependent on Israel, and now, with little to no access to the outside world as a result of Israeli restrictions and the occupation, the economy has no possibility of recovery.

Occupied East Jerusalem, meanwhile, is one of the primary victims of the wall. The wall neither separates Jerusalem from its immediate environs nor East Jerusalem from West Jerusalem but rather separates different neighborhoods of East Jerusalem from each other and most of the city from the West Bank.

To describe this wall only in security terms as Israel does is so misleading as to be bordering on the absurd. The wall is constricting any political horizon by unilaterally taking land away from Palestinians, thus destroying the possibility that a viable Palestinian state can emerge and devastating any possibility of economic recovery.

The Hamas-led government has shown an impressive commitment to the current ceasefire. With the possible return of international attention to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the resumption of political contacts between the two leaderships, it is time that this wall is tackled head on.

The lead must come from the Palestinian leadership, which should work to persuade the members of the Quartet to take action and pressure Israel to abide by international law, whether as expressed by the International Court of Justice or in UN Security Council resolutions.

The wall must be removed and replaced by confidence-building measures that can improve the Palestinian economy and bring back hope of a peaceful end to Israel's occupation. Only that way can both sides' legitimate aspirations be achieved successfully. - Published 12/3/2007 © bitterlemons.org

Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. He is vice-president of Birzeit University and a former Palestinian Authority minister of planning.

Israel plans to build a colonial settlement near the Qalanida checkpoint

Related

Israeli occupation forces invade the Al Far'a refugee camp

---
Israel plans to build a settlement neighborhood near Qalanida checkpoint
Thursday March 01, 2007 02:07
by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

The 'Arabs48' news website published an article based on a report by an Israeli newspaper on Wednesday morning, stating that the Israeli Government is preparing a plan to construct a new settlement neighborhood that includes 11,000 settlement housing units, near Qalanida checkpoint north of Jerusalem.

The plan includes digging a tunnel under Kufur Aqib Arab neighborhood in order to link the new settlement neighborhood with the Eastern Settlement Bloc which remained on the other side of the Annexation Wall.

The Arabs48 said that if this plan is carried out, it will be the largest settlement construction plan in that area since Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967.

Meanwhile, Israeli sources reported that the plan was welcomed by the Jerusalem Municipality, but is not yet officially approved.

The Municipality said that it will examine the plan when it is officially submitted to it. The Israeli Housing Ministry said that it had no information regarding this project.

The Annexation Wall section in Qalandia, separating the Palestinian neighborhoods in north Jerusalem from the neighborhoods in Ramallah is expected to be finalized soon. This area is one of the most densely populated areas in the West Bank.

The new settlement neighborhood is planned to be linked with Kokhav Jacob settlement, east of Jerusalem. The planned tunnel is intended to shorten the distance between the Beit El settlement Bloc and Jerusalem.

saed at imemc dot org

3,000 new Jewish settler homes being built: watchdog

Wed Feb 21, 6:55 AM ET

More than 3,000 Jewish settlement housing units are being built in the occupied West Bank where the Jewish population is growing steadily, Israel's anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said Wednesday.

In its annual report on settlements -- considered illegal under international law -- the organisation said the largest sites of construction were in Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, Modiin Illit and Beitar Illit.

In addition, another 90 caravans were added to wildcat outposts -- which unlike full settlements are not authorised by Israel -- and of which permanent construction is taking place in 30, Peace Now said.

The existing 102 outposts are home to 2,000 settlers. Last year, one unpopulated outpost was dismantled.

Over the past year, the number of settlements remained the same at 121 and no new outposts were established, the report added.

The head of Peace Now highlighted the increased problem of large settlement blocs, thrusting deeper into Palestinian land, and continued construction in outposts the government had committed to tear down.

"The settlements blocs are becoming a huge problems, with increased building in the settlement blocs. They are getting bigger and getting deeper into the West Bank," Yariv Openheimer told AFP.

"Even outposts that have all the orders to be demolished and the state (made commitments) to the Israeli supreme court, we see continued construction and even permanent houses," he added.

Citing interior ministry statistics unveiled last month showing a 5.8 percent growth in the Jewish settler population, Peace Now said 268,00 settlers were living in the West Bank.

"In reality the growth of the settler population remains on a steady rate, and three times higher than the rate amongst Israel proper," it said.

Israel has repeatedly told the United States that it would dismantle wildcat outposts across the West Bank.

Under the now stalled internationally drafted roadmap plan for peace in the Middle East, Israel was to freeze settlement expansion.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shelved an election promise to redraw the borders of the Jewish state by withdrawing from most of the West Bank and annexing the largest settlement blocs, following the summer war in Lebanon.

Hebron settler filmed attacking Arab

By Nir Hasson

The Hebron police opened an investigation yesterday of local Jewish Quarter resident Yifat Alkobi, who was documented on video cursing and attacking the Abu-Aisha family in the city.

Alkobi is well known to Hebron police for her alleged attack of a 10-year-old Palestinian child in March 2005, for which she is to go on trial February 1. The boy, Yusuf Aza, told investigators from the human rights organization Yesh Din that he was walking on the path between his home and Alkobi's with two friends, when she began pelting him with stones. Aza added that Alkobi "grabbed me by the shirt and pushed me up against the wall. A soldier tried to help, but she pushed him away, and he fell down. She held me with one hand and with the other pushed a rock into my mouth and forced my mouth closed. I felt my teeth breaking." Aza said the soldier got up and called for help on his radio.

Yesh Din has protested that, nearly two years after the attack, Alkobi is not under arrest.

The spokesperson for the Hebron settlers, Orit Struk, responded that the latest incident and others should be seen as "part of the whole picture and the harassment of Jews by Arabs in the city."
---
Videotaped Hebron settler violence just the tip of the iceberg
Press Release, B'Tselem, 11 January 2007

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem calls on Israeli authorities not to make the settler, Yifat Alkoby a scapegoat for law enforcement failures in the West Bank. Alkoby was summoned for questioning following the extensive airing of a B'Tselem video in which she is seen assaulting and swearing at women and girls from the Abu-'Ayesha family, in Tel Rumeida, Hebron. The incident, as grave as it is, is only the tip of the iceberg of the daily violence committed by Hebron settlers, against their Palestinian neighbors, under the protection of the army. The attacks in Hebron are carried out in full view of Israeli soldiers, who are unable or unwilling to stop them. The Hebron police, who have received hundreds of complaints about settler violence, are also well aware of the situation. The fact that the Defense Minister and the security establishment feign ignorance and mobilize to respond to the problem only following the public controversy generated by this video is outrageous. The widespread settler violence in Hebron is not the result of a specific failure of one kind or another, but is the consequence of a consistent and longstanding Israeli policy to ignore harm to Palestinians, which is aimed at encouraging them to abandon parts of the city. Related Links B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories BY TOPIC: Settlements and Settlers

Marking the territory

Militants giving Israel excuse to cancel easements
---

By Amira Hass

At 6:30 last Friday morning, two cars waited for soldiers to open the checkpoint at the eastern entrance to Ramallah. This checkpoint is only for diplomats, Palestinian VIPs, journalists, employees of international organizations and anyone whose presence is welcomed by the military authorities. The checkpoint obligates thousands of villagers living in the vicinity to travel from 30 to 60 kilometers, instead of three to four km, so the settlers of Beit El and Psagot and of the outposts of Migron and Givat Asaf can exercise their landlordism.

The cars waited but the soldiers did not come, even though the checkpoint officially opens at 6 A.M. The iron gate was unlocked; one could have opened it and advanced toward the watchtower. Drivers began honking to attract the soldiers' attention, but if they were sleeping they did not wake up; if they were in the guard tower, they did not come out. Were they derelict in their duty to uphold national security?

Of course not. As in hundreds of other blockades and checkpoints, the security pretext serves consistent strategic aims. Their function is to mark territory, to distinguish between "territorial units" (in Israel Defense Forces lingo), into which the Palestinians will be restricted as part of the permanent arrangements that will be imposed upon them, and the area Israel intends to annex. The territorial marking took place before September 2000 as well: generous construction permits for the settlements, prohibitions against construction and the prevention of development for the Palestinians, and an expansion of the settlements' jurisdiction. The means change, the ends do not.

The declaration of "easements" helps to divert discussion from the real intentions. And still, if at a few checkpoints (out of about 80), people will wait for 20 minutes instead of three hours, they will feel some relief. If a few of the 400 obstructions between villages are removed, their residents can reach their plots of land by tractor rather than on foot. And if, in the third promised stage, Palestinians will be permitted to travel to the Jordan Valley, then that will be a real celebration.

But it is doubtful this stage will ever come. Sooner or later, a Palestinian carrying a rifle in his car will be detained at a checkpoint where "easements" were instituted. The military spokesmen will wave the rifle about as proof that the state's security is endangered. Or a teenager from Nablus will be found carrying an improvized, home-made, pistol or an explosives belt, and the security "ring" around Nablus will be drawn taut once more. The IDF will describe the boy's handlers as "senior commanders," and at some point they will be killed "in an exchange of gunfire" or an assassination that will not be termed as such.

The IDF is not the only one marking territory, after all. The armed Palestinian organizations are doing it as well. But the IDF marks territory as part of a strategic plan that unites parties such as Kadima, Yisrael Beiteinu and Labor. The Palestinian militants and their handlers mark territory in the absence of a united policy, as part of their infighting. They compete for admiration, for salaries from the Palestinian Authority and for foreign funding. They pretend that what they are doing, have done and promise to do brings their people closer to liberation.

From the first days of the second Palestinian popular uprising against the Israeli occupation, the militants have expropriated it and turned it into hopeless exchanges of fire with the military might of the IDF, and afterward to counting the Israeli dead as proof of its success. They provided, in some measure, the desire to avenge the many civilian deaths caused by the IDF. But they also provided Israel with an excuse to hew to its policy of continuing to expand its marked territory. The ritual of the "armed struggle" turned it into a target that needs no strategy.

The desire not to insult those who are liable to be killed, and fear of the hot-blooded militants, stifle the internal debate over the failure caused by the use of arms and the reinforcement it gave to Israel. And so, the militant organizations and their many offshoots are sure to provide, soon enough, the next pretext for canceling the "easements."

Instead of Kvetching About the 'Israel Lobby', Let's Support the State Department When It Does Something Right

Mark Weisbrot and Robert Naiman

Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy, December 28, 2006

The State Department, in a "rare public rebuke," criticized Israeli government plans to build a new settlement in the West Bank, the New York Times reports.

"We are aware of reports about the Maskiot settlement," said a State Department spokesperson. "The establishment of a new settlement or the expansion of an existing settlement would violate Israel's obligations under the road map."

"The U.S. calls on Israel to meet its road map obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as pre-determining the outcome of final-status negotiations," the spokesperson said.

It's not every day I get to wave my "Go State Department!" banner. Why, just yesterday I was criticizing them for their support of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

But when even Jimmy Carter says "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians," when the State Department does something right, we ought to ask Members of Congress to speak up.

Memo to Carter: if you want Members of Congress to do something, advising them that it would be "almost politically suicidal" might not be the most politically strategic way to go about it. [If I'm the 'Israel Lobby,' I'm delighted when I see stuff like this. I clip it from the newspaper and include it in my next fundraising appeal.]

How about a different approach: baby steps. Let's not start by, say, asking Members of Congress to use the word "apartheid" when discussing Israeli policies in the West Bank. Instead, let's start by asking them to speak up in support of the State Department when it does something right. How much chutzpah would that take? Is the 'Israel Lobby' going to take down Members of Congress for supporting the State Department? I don't think so. Rep. Dennis Kucinich called for an immediate ceasefire this summer when Israel was bombing Lebanon and he just got reelected with 66% of the vote.

If you agree with this strategy, pile in. Ask your Representatives in Congress to support the State Department's call for Israel not to build new settlements in the West Bank.

READ MORE: Israel, West Bank, United States, Somalia, Jimmy Carter

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (www.cepr.net) Washington, D.C. and President of Just Foreign Policy. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on international economic policy.

He writes a column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to over 550 newspapers by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and most major U.S. newspapers. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs.

More information on his publications is available here.

Robert Naiman is National Coordinator of Just Foreign Policy, a
membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy to
reflect the values and serve the interests of the majority of
Americans. Naiman edits the daily Just Foreign Policy news summary.
JFP's web site is www.justforeignpolicy.org.

U.S. Scolds Israel on Plan for West Bank Settlement

December 28, 2006
By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 — In a rare public rebuke to Israel, the Bush administration said Wednesday that an Israeli plan to construct a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time in 10 years could violate the terms of an American-backed peace proposal.

“We are aware of reports about the Maskiot settlement,” said Gonzalo Gallegos, director of the State Department’s Office of Press Relations. “The establishment of a new settlement or the expansion of an existing settlement would violate Israel’s obligations under the road map.”

--MORE--

Moving on to the next scandal...

By Uzi Benziman

A month ago, Haaretz ran a sensational story on its front page: Reporter Nadav Shragai gave a detailed description of the findings of a Peace Now report, which said that close to 40 percent of the land under the control of West Bank settlements is privately owned by Palestinians. The report was based on an official state database that Peace Now leaked.

Haaretz was the only Israeli media outlet that adequately covered the report. The Maariv daily gave a synopsis of the report on page six; Israel Radio announced it in its midday broadcast; and it stayed on various electronic news sites for about a day. The remaining media outlets, including Yedioth Ahronoth, the television stations and Army Radio, completely ignored it.

The media was not alone in underplaying the findings of the report and avoiding its implications (except for Haaretz, which ran follow-up analyses by Shragai, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff). The key subjects of the report also adopted a tactic of minimizing it: No official government response was issued, the Civil Administration put out a statement saying, among other things, that "an initial review of the report shows that it suffers from serious inaccuracies," and the Yesha Council of settlements claimed that there was nothing new in the report and that Peace Now would use any means to fight Jewish settlement.

In contrast to the low-profile response to the report offered by the state and the Israeli media, it received a great deal of attention abroad: The New York Times published it as its lead story, and other large newspapers followed suit; and the report's authors, Dror Etkes and Hagit Ofran, were interviewed by dozens of radio and television stations throughout the world. Etkes and Ofran estimate that their findings were covered by hundreds of media outlets. Etkes was also interviewed by Israel Radio - along with Benny Kashriel, mayor of the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement - but only as a result of a report by the station's Washington correspondent, Yaron Dekel, about the buzz that the findings had produced in the United States.

What is more interesting than the extent of the coverage that the report received in Israel is the impression it left on Israeli public opinion: A day after the modest announcement of its findings, the report disappeared entirely from public discourse, except for one more announcement by the Yesha Council challenging its reliability. The parties on the left did not address it, the Knesset did not deliberate it, the press did not deal with it, the government ignored it, and the justice, defense and prime ministers were not asked to explain the findings that it exposed.

What the Peace Now researchers found is that state organs stole private lands from Palestinians living in the West Bank. The report found that state bodies broke the law, ignored Supreme Court decisions and behaved dishonestly, and certainly unethically. Peace Now claimed that 130 settlements were established, fully or partially, on private lands. Note: These are properties that the state recognized as private land, not private properties that were declared to be state land. This involved the systematic and blatant violation by state agencies of the property rights of thousands of Palestinians. This is the same repugnant, underhanded and apparently criminal modus operandi that attorney Talia Sasson detailed in the report she wrote on the establishment of the illegal outposts.

Israel's conscience is entirely black. Scandal follows scandal, and today's injustice wipes away yesterday's injustice in our consciousness. Israeli society's heart is so hard when it comes to Palestinians in the territories that it remains unmoved even when confronted with a scene of continuous injustice that strips individuals of their property.

The malice, deception and aggression embodied in the way the state took over lands belonging to private individuals, even if they are Palestinians, ought to stir up every honest person, even if he is a settler. This method has nothing to do with the ideological dispute over the establishment of the settlements: The issue at stake is that individuals have been stripped of their basic rights. The settlements could have been set up solely on state land. However, a society that is not shocked by the killing of innocent Palestinians will also not be moved even slightly by the sight of land stolen from any individual Palestinian.

UN demands an immediate halt to Israeli settlements

Middle East News
By DPA
Dec 16, 2006, 17:52 GMT

New York - The United Nations has demanded that Israel immediately halt its controversial settlement policy, it was reported Saturday.

'Settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights (are) illegal and an obstacle to peace as well as economic and social development,' a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly with 162 votes in favour late Friday in New York said.

Eight countries, including Israel and the United States, voted against the resolution, while 10 abstained.

The UN also called on Israel to guarantee the security of aid organizations working in the Palestinian Territories.

The 15-member Security Council renewed the mandate of the UN observer force in the Golan Heights for another cycle. The UN force that has observed the truce between Israel and Syria since 1974 is now due to remain in the area until the middle of 2007 at least.

There are 1,000 soldiers in the Golan Heights force from countries like Austria, Canada and India.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

The Democrats Dilemma & Iran

The Democrats & Iran Conn Hallinan | December 9, 2006 Editor: John Feffer, IRC
Foreign Policy In Focus
As the dust begins to settle from the mid-term elections, popular thinking is that, over the next two years, the Democrats will force the Bush administration to edge away from the unilateral militarism that has entrapped the nation in two open-ended wars. Don't bet the rent on it. Indeed, if you are putting down a wager, the odds are better than even that the United States will attack Iran in the next two years, and the assault will have a great deal of support from both sides of the aisle. The political decision to take on Iran depends on a number of factors. Washington continues to focus on extracting U.S. troops from Iraq. And a resolution of the Iraq debacle requires some regional approach that includes dealing with the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Dems, in other words, have a choice. They can get sucked into the war that the administration wants with Iran. Or they can put forward a bold alternative that can not only prepare for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq but restabilize the Middle East as well. Iran in the Crosshairs The Bush administration's bombast on Iran is well known. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the United States “may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran,” and administration officials have called it everything from “the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism” to a “threat to world peace.” Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force Colonel and strategy teacher at the National War College, the Naval War College, and the Air Force War College, says President Bush is determined to attack Iran. Gardiner says Bush compares himself to Winston Churchill and “talks about the Middle East in messianic terms, and is said to have told those close to him that he has got to attack Iran because even if a Republican succeeds him … he will not have the same freedom of action that Bush enjoys.” According to Seymour Hersh, during a recent discussion on national security, Cheney said that the Nov. 7 election “would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran.” Neocon supporters of the administration are already revving their engines. Joshua Muravchik, writing in a Foreign Policy memo, puts an attack on Tehran at the top of the neocon to-do list for the administration's next two years. Similar comments have come from leading Israeli officials. An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson told the Jerusalem Post /a> that “only a military strike by the United States and its allies will stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons,” while Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh openly threatened to attack Iran's nuclear sites. Danny Ayalon, outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United States, said that he is confident that Bush “will not hesitate to use force against Iran in order to halt its nuclear program.” The Democrats' Dilemma Some of this U.S. and Israeli rhetoric has been echoed by Democrats, particularly incoming Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi. In 2005, she told a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that “the greatest threat to Israel's right to exist … now comes from Iran.” AIPAC has long been associated with some of the more extreme sectors of the Israeli political spectrum. The organization has been particularly aggressive in lobbying for war with Iran, a war that polls show the U.S. public strongly opposes. The Democrats' close ties with AIPAC and the Israeli government are already causing problems. The Democrats won the election on a platform of getting the United States out of Iraq, but AIPAC and the current Kadima-Labor government strongly support that war. Following an hour-long meeting with President Bush last week, Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert told the press, “We in the Middle East have been following the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability” that the war in Iraq has brought to the Middle East. U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), a reliable supporter of Israel, retorted that Olmert's comment was “a very unrealistic observation. Most of us here understand that our policy has been a thorough and total disaster for the United States: we have blundered ineptly into an area that our administration does not understand, and for which it has no plan on how to extract us.” Although several other Democrats were similarly angered by the comments, Pelosi so far has remained quiet. For all their rhetoric, the vast majority of Democrats does not want war with Iran, but under our system of government, the president has enormous powers. According to Rice, the administration has already been authorized to attack Iran under powers given it by the congressional legislation on the war on terrorism. Iraq and Palestine The problem for the Democrats is how to extract the United States from Iraq, and few observers think that can be done without addressing the Israeli-Palestinian question. In a recent editorial, the Financial Times argued that Israeli expansion on the West Bank “is what constantly threatens to set the region alight.” A recent survey by Israeli retired Brigadier General Baruch Spiegel, a former assistant to Israel's Defense Ministry, found that the IDF and West Bank civil authorities are suppressing what the newspaper Haaretz calls “the systematic illegal expansion of existing settlements … in blatant violation of the law.” The newspaper called the survey—which is yet to be reported in the United States—“political and diplomatic dynamite.” Yet Pelosi explicitly rejects the argument that the occupation has anything to do with the current crisis between Israelis and Palestinians. “There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza,” she told the AIPAC audience in 2005. “That is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.” Aside from AIPAC, the Bush administration's neocons, and the Israeli right wing, few would agree with that formulation. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently argued that an Israeli-Palestinian settlement was “the core” of a broader effort for peace in the region. Indeed, elevating the conflict to a matter of Israel's survival plays into the hands of extremists on both sides. Israel and Iran AIPAC and Olmert also link Israel's survival to defeating Iran. Yet, although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's has threatened to wipe out Israel, his bluster is not backed up by any ability to do so. As Scott Ritter points out, Ahmadinejad has no authority over anything pertaining to national security, the armed forces, the police, or the Revolutionary Guard. He is, as one former Iranian president commented, “a knife without a blade.” In any case, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons, while Iran is several years away from producing even one. An Iranian attack on Israel would be tantamount to national suicide. Plus, while the Israelis routinely describe Iran as a threat to peace in the Middle East, Iran has not invaded anyone in 250 years, though it has been the victim of several attacks. The authority to go to war rests with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in May 2003 offered to open up Iran's nuclear plants for inspection, rein in Hezbollah, accept a two-state solution, and cooperate against al-Qaida. He also issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. The initiative was shot down by Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In terms of Iran's nuclear threat to Israel or the world more generally, Seymour Hersh says the CIA has “found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.” Linking a possible conflict with Iran to the survival of Israel or to broader nonproliferation goals is in the interests of neither Israel nor the United States. Such arguments from the Bush administration and the Israeli right wing will condemn the region to decades of endless war. The Democrats are going to have to make some hard choices to keep the loyalty of those who voted for an end to the Iraq War and military adventurism. For starters they must call for an immediate end to Israeli's expansion of settlements in the West Bank. To end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Dems should push hard for immediate negotiations with all Palestinian parties culminating in full Arab recognition of Israel and a full withdrawal from all occupied Arab land. The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should pledge to defend Israel within its 1967 borders. To guarantee regional peace, the United States should support a regional conference, including Iran, Syria, and all elements in Iraq, to reach a peace accord and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the region. The Bush administration is mustering arguments and support for its solution to the Middle East crisis: an attack on Iran. Democrats and their dissenting colleagues across the aisle must offer a feasible alternative. It is time to go to work, Madame Speaker. Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) columnist.

60 years after Partitioning of Palestine, residents stranded between checkpoints, Wall & settlements

Feature translated by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC - Saturday, 02 December 2006, 03:12

by Palestine News Network Last Wednesday, November 29, was the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, the UN Partition Plan for partitioning Palestine of November 29, 1947. It was considered the first decision that called for partitioning Palestine and the creation of two Arab and Jewish states. Thirty-three countries approved the decision, 13 voted against it and 10 countries abstained. Now, as 2006 is passing away, the Palestinians are living between checkpoints, isolated behind the huge concrete Walls and more than 160 settlements hotting several hundreds of thousands o settlers have bee constructed. Qalqilia city, in the northern part of the West Bank, lived and still living the partitioning resolution, as it lost lands to Israel in 1947, then lost more lands in 1967 and now is losing what is left for the construction of the Annexation Wall. Resident Abdullah Amin J'eidy, was born in Qalqilia in 1920, he lived the different stages Palestinian had to go through, he was 27 when the partitioning resolution was passed, and now he is living in Qalqilia that became totally isolated by the Wall. “We heard about the resolution, but we never saw it”, J'eidy said, “and in 1948 we felt the true loss of our land after Israeli occupied the historic Palestine”. “They stole my land, and they barred me even from seeing it again, I still have papers proving my ownership, but they don't' care”, he added, “Now am here, I will not move from what i have left, I will not give my land away”. He still remembers his lost land, he still remember the first Kibbutz installed there, his old neighbors and every details of what he lost. Qalqilia municipality said that after the Partitioning order, 80% of the farmlands were annexed to Israel, and that Qalqilia used to be 50.000 Dunams, but now only 10.000 are left. Dr. Ali Abdul-Hameed head of the Regional and Civil Planning center in Al Najah University in Nablus, said that the Partitioning order was theoretical and was never implemented. “Now, sixty years after it was approved, the Palestinians are living in isolated cantons, separated by settlements and checkpoints blocking the entrances of the cities and villages”, Abdul-Hameed stated, “the plan Sharon presented in the early eighteens aimed at dividing the West Bank into five sections, now it is implemented with 620 checkpoints spreed all over the West Bank”. Professor Ibrahim Abu Jaber, head of the Studies Center in Um Al Fahim, said that the Partitioning resolution gave the Palestinians 70% of the land to the Palestinian and 30% to the Jews. “Although i reject the resolution, it is still better than what is going on today, now Israel is also expelling the Bedouins from the Negev, and the Arabs from several areas”, Abu Jaber said, “I am an Bedouin from the Negev, my family and I were expelled, and we are living in Kafer Qassim after Israel issued a military order annexing all of the agricultural lands to use them for military proposes”. “After the Partitioning resolution was passed at the UN, I became a refugee in my own land”, he added. The UN Partition Plan for Palestine (Full text)

Related Articles ... Peretz: “Army, security services, will continue West Bank operation” 98 residents taken prisoner in Bethlehem in November Child killed by military fire in Nablus Israeli Navy fires at a Palestinian fishing boat Two weeks after his death, Palestinian resident identified by family Settlers hurl stones at an UNRWA bus in Jerusalem Israeli soldier who shot foreigner in Palestine to serve two-week sentence Diabetic journalist imprisoned without trial on hunger strike Palestinian youth killed, two injured by Israeli military fire near Nablus Al Aqsa brigades says it will not abide to the truce since it excludes the West Bank

Israeli settlers, or squatters?

The revelation that much of the West Bank land for settlements is owned by Palestinians damages Israel's self-image as a country of laws.
By Gershom Gorenberg
GERSHOM GORENBERG is the author of "The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977."

November 26, 2006


At the West Bank settlement of Ofrah, as seen from the ground, two-story suburban houses stand along quiet streets. Near the community's entry gate are a few prefab concrete structures — remains of the abandoned Jordanian army base where the first settlers lived in the mid-1970s, until they built their comfortable homes.

Here's another picture of Ofrah, with color-coded data on land ownership superimposed on an aerial photo: Near the entrance are small brown splotches of state-owned land, the original Jordanian base. Almost all the rest of Ofrah's area is marked in red, indicating that it is private Palestinian property. The data on which the map is based, apparently updated in 2004, comes from the Israeli government's civil administration in the West Bank. Leaked to researchers from the Peace Now movement, the information forms the basis for their stark report, published Tuesday, on exploitation of private Palestinian land for Israeli settlement.

The report is both deeply disturbing and curiously unsurprising. The public, in Israel and outside it, did not know previously that 38.8% of all settlement land is privately owned by Palestinians. Nor did we know that the proportion is actually slightly higher than this in the "settlement blocs" that the current Israeli government hopes to keep permanently as part of Israel. Settlements, the Israeli public presumed, stood on land owned by the state or by Jews.

Yet, the newly revealed figures fit into a known context: Israel rules the West Bank, but what happens there does not follow Israel's own rules. Since Israel's conquest of the territory in 1967, settlement has been a tool in the battle for permanent political control, and both officials and activists have been complicit in putting the cause above the law.

The result is injustice to the Palestinian residents and an undermining of Israel's legal institutions.

In the eyes of Israel's legal system, the West Bank — except for annexed East Jerusalem — is under military occupation. Israel's courts have avoided ruling on the broad issue of whether all settlement in occupied territory is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. But they have acknowledged that the international laws of war codified in the 1907 Hague Convention apply. That includes Article 46, which forbids confiscating private property for use by the occupying power.

So how did settlements, built with government support and often at government initiative, end up on private Palestinian land?

In the first years of the occupation, Israel regularly "requisitioned" land, ostensibly to meet provisional military needs. Palestinian residents retained ownership, but not control, of their real estate. On some of that land, the government established settlements.

Facing court challenges in the 1970s, the state argued that the new communities served Israel's security and were not permanent. The officials who planned the settlements may have believed that they had military value. But they did not regard them as temporary. The settlements' underlying purpose, as shown by an extensive paper trail in Israeli archives, was to anchor a political claim to territory before any negotiations began.

In a landmark 1979 ruling, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the requisition of land for one settlement, Elon Moreh, when the state abjectly failed to show military need. Elon Moreh was moved, and the government stopped requisitioning land. But it did not return property it had seized elsewhere to its owners, or take down other settlements built on requisitioned land.

Officially, the policy since 1979 has been only to use state-owned real estate or land bought privately by Jews for new settlements. Last year, though, a government-commissioned report on small settlement "outposts" set up in the last decade showed that many stood on Palestinian property. That report apparently relied on the same data used by Peace Now.

The Peace Now research suggests that the practice of simply building Israeli homes on the land of others with no legal basis is much more widespread. The vast majority of settlements have been built since 1979. Because the government has so far refused to reveal what land is covered by old requisition orders, it is impossible to know how much land has simply been overrun. At the new Elon Moreh, for instance, 65% of the land is Palestinian-owned, according to the Peace Now report. Was any of that land formally requisitioned before 1979?

Actually, though, the distinction is not as significant as it seems. The requisitions before 1979 deliberately bent the law of occupation. In the case of private land overrun since then, the law has simply been broken. The government has not only shirked its responsibility as an occupying power to enforce the law, it has also planned and subsidized the settlement effort.

So the irony is this: The bulldozers used to build settlements have extended Israel's de facto control of territory. Yet, at the same time, they have weakened Israel as a state built on the rule of law — the kind of state that its truest patriots have sought to create.

The Peace Now report is certain to sharpen, not end, the arguments about who owns which specific pieces of real estate. But the overall lesson of history remains clear: Difficult as dismantling the settlement enterprise will be, it is essential not only for a diplomatic solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is needed to restore Israel to itself.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-gorenberg26nov26,1,1452539.story?coll=la-news-comment

Israel acts like mafia when it comes to settlements

A settlements mafia

By Dror Etkes


The figures published yesterday by Peace Now's Settlement Watch team on the ownership of land on which the settlements sit presents a scary picture of the State of Israel's behavior in the territories. Approximately 40 percent of the area of settlements is privately-owned Palestinian land, according to the Civil Administration. Put simply, for dozens of years, Israel continued to expand and entrench the settlement enterprise by dispossessing Palestinian residents of their lands, whose private ownership even the State of Israel does not dispute. All of this is in contrast to the frequently voiced argument of official government spokesmen and settlers that "the settlements sit on state lands."

What is the method used to bring about this phenomenon? From 1967 to 1979, the Israeli military administration in the West Bank made widespread use of the process of "acquiring land for security purposes" to grab thousands of dunams of land under private Palestinian ownership. These lands were in practice used for the purpose of expanding the settlements.

Although "acquiring land for security purposes" in an occupied area is permitted according to international law, it is also limited to a certain time. The High Court of Justice rejected the petitions the landowners submitted against the acquisitions, basing itself on the argument that the settlements do indeed have an added security value, as they are located in the heart of an area where a hostile population lives. That is, permanent settlements were established on lands whose acquisition was meant to have been temporary to begin with. To this day, dozens of settlements owe their legal existence to the absurd ritual in which the OC Central Command signs an extension of the acquisition orders for the lands on which they sit, while declaring that he is convinced the land in question is "necessary for military purposes."

Ironically, this method of operation eventually ran into trouble specifically because of the settlers' refusal to continue cooperating with the open lie at the heart of all those declarations the IDF provided to the High Court of Justice. In a response submitted by the settlers in 1979, when the High Court of Justice was discussing land acquisitions for Elon Moreh, it was actually the settlers who refused to recognize the temporary nature of the settlement they were about to set up, arguing that it was not being set up for the purpose of temporary security needs, but as a "supreme moral and divine order." With no alternative available, the High Court of Justice was compelled to overturn its previous decisions and to order the state to refrain from acquiring lands intended for building settlements. Even though Elon Moreh had to relocate to an alternate site, all the settlements that had been established in this manner until that point remained where they were.

As a result of the Elon Moreh case, the construction of settlements in the territories, which only accelerated during those years, switched to two parallel tracks: the first, the pseudo-legal one, in which the government of Israel, assisted by the legal advice from the industrious Plia Albeck, declared huge tracts of the West Bank to be state lands. And in that way, without Israeli governments ever having to provide any sort of accounting, not for the questionable way in which these lands were declared state lands, nor for the very fact that these land were allocated only for Jews (even though they were and remain a small minority of the West Bank population), the settlement enterprise became entrenched.

The second track on which Israel worked represents a more advanced stage in the government's scorn for the concept of its subordination to the laws of the state, whose enforcement, or so it is commonly thought, it is actually supposed to oversee: the governments of Israel continued to initiate or "only" to enable the construction of settlements, neighborhoods and outposts on private lands without even bothering to issue acquisition orders, because after all, the High Court of Justice would probably have disqualified them.

As mentioned, all of this happened with the knowledge of the Civil Administration, which did not get lazy and took the trouble to document the phenomenon and its dimensions, while insolently insisting on its right to conceal it from the public. And this is what the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office wrote to the court when explaining its refusal to hand over the data: "The subject of the petition is an extremely sensitive issue that involves, among other things, the State of Israel's security considerations and foreign relations."

Even though it is hard to understand what "security considerations" could have been involved in this matter, it is easy to guess how Israel's foreign relations would indeed have been affected by the information contained here. The unfortunate conclusion is that when it comes to land management policy, the State of Israel acts like a mafia state inside the area of the West Bank.

The author is the director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch project.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/790934.html