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Uh-Oh, 4/10 of Israeli West bank Settlements Are On Private Palestinian Lands
Truthmonger
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1953702,00.html
39% of Israeli settlements 'on private land'
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Wednesday November 22, 2006
The Guardian
An Israeli human rights group produced figures yesterday showing that 39% of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are built on private Palestinian land.
The claim by Settlement Watch, part of the Peace Now organisation, represents a potentially serious challenge to the Israeli government because Israeli courts have ruled that settlements must not be built on confiscated private Palestinian land.
The report is based on a leaked 2004 database from the civil administration, the government body in charge of settlement building. It found that 39% of the total area of settlements, outposts and industrial zones in the West Bank was built on private Palestinian land.
"It is clear that the settlement enterprise has, since its inception, ignored Israeli law and undermined not only the collective property rights of the Palestinians as a people, but also the private property rights of individual Palestinian landowners," the group wrote.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was elected earlier this year on a programme of consolidating the West Bank settlements, but since the war in Lebanon that plan has been shelved. There are now around 400,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In a key ruling in 1979, the Israeli high court said settlements should only be built on state land. A report produced last year by former Israeli state prosecutor Talya Sason said it was "absolutely prohibited" to build on private land.
Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for the civil administration, said land ownership was not always clear. "It is very hard to tell in many cases," he said. The so-called Blue Line committee was still investigation land ownership disputes, he said.
39% of Israeli settlements 'on private land'
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Wednesday November 22, 2006
The Guardian
An Israeli human rights group produced figures yesterday showing that 39% of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are built on private Palestinian land.
The claim by Settlement Watch, part of the Peace Now organisation, represents a potentially serious challenge to the Israeli government because Israeli courts have ruled that settlements must not be built on confiscated private Palestinian land.
The report is based on a leaked 2004 database from the civil administration, the government body in charge of settlement building. It found that 39% of the total area of settlements, outposts and industrial zones in the West Bank was built on private Palestinian land.
"It is clear that the settlement enterprise has, since its inception, ignored Israeli law and undermined not only the collective property rights of the Palestinians as a people, but also the private property rights of individual Palestinian landowners," the group wrote.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was elected earlier this year on a programme of consolidating the West Bank settlements, but since the war in Lebanon that plan has been shelved. There are now around 400,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In a key ruling in 1979, the Israeli high court said settlements should only be built on state land. A report produced last year by former Israeli state prosecutor Talya Sason said it was "absolutely prohibited" to build on private land.
Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for the civil administration, said land ownership was not always clear. "It is very hard to tell in many cases," he said. The so-called Blue Line committee was still investigation land ownership disputes, he said.
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Settlements 'violate Israeli law'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6168752.stm
More than a third of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are built on privately owned Palestinian land, an Israeli campaign group has reported.
Peace Now says nearly 40% of the land the settlements sit on is, according to official data, "effectively stolen" from Palestinian landowners.
This, the group says, is a violation of Israel's own laws.
Settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law, although Israel rejects this.
About 430,000 Jews live in these residential areas in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Peace Now called on the Israeli government to return the private land to its Palestinian owners.
In recent years the Israeli government has said repeatedly that it respects Palestinian property rights in the West Bank.
An Israeli official has said the government is reviewing the report.
JEWISH SETTLEMENTS
130 settlements were constructed either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land
19,800 acres of the land used by the settlements, nearly 40% of the total, is private Palestinian land
86.4% of Maale Adumim is built on privately-owned land
The data on which the findings are based comes from a 2004 survey by the Civil Administration, which manages the civilian aspects of Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
The data was leaked to Peace Now via an official in the Civil Administration. The group says the government had refused to give this information to it.
The group says that the data it has received has been "hidden by the State for many years, for fear that the revelation of these facts could damage its international relations".
According to the report, 86.4% of the Maale Adumim settlement block, the largest in the West Bank, is built on private Palestinian land, and not on what the Israeli government refers to as "state land".
The settlement is home to 32,372 people and lies due east of Jerusalem.
"The claim by the State and settlers that the settlements have been constructed on state land is misleading and false," Peace Now says.
Illegal under international law according to Fourth Geneva Convention (article 49), which prohibits an occupying power transferring citizens from its own territory to occupied territory
Israel argues international conventions relating to occupied land do not apply to West Bank because it was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state before 1967
"The vast majority of settlement construction was done against the law of the land and the Supreme Court ruling and therefore unauthorised.
"[The data] indicates the direct violation of Israeli law carried out by the State itself, driven by the architects and leaders of the settlement movement."
In 1979 the Israeli High Court forbade the establishment of settlements on privately-owned Palestinian that has been seized by Israel for military purposes.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at its core a conflict over land and in the West Bank property rights, BBC Jerusalem correspondent Crispin Thorold says.
This is the area which Palestinians want to be the basis of a future independent state.
If confirmed the findings could have major implications for any future peace deal.
Some of the settlements that the Israeli government wants to be included within its final borders are built on land overwhelmingly owned by Palestinian individuals. Peace Now is an Israeli group that monitors Israel settlements in the West Bank.
The oldest peace movement in Israel, it advocates the setting up of a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in 1967.
To break down borders and realise that we are one species and then the true patriotism comes from pride and love of the human race, not from the tribes of which we currently are divided, open your eyes your mind will see! - ME
Maybe people would stop calling Israel's detractors "anti-semitic" and other insults if they could actually come up with something constructive and useful themselves.
Worth a try, perhaps?
most of israel's detractors on MT would consider liquidating the jewish state "constructive". [sarcasm]because, you know, wishing existential vulnerability on jews is progressive, not antisemitic.[/sarcasm]
Most antizionists are antisemites
I guess the truth isn't always constructive and useful to certain agendas but there's no escaping it no matter how much 'poor, innocent victim' sugar coating you try to apply. They were wrong from the beginning...stealing always is. It's debatable where we go from here once the wrong has been comitted but that will never erase the fact that the wrong happened in the first place. I guess the Palestinian's right to exist wasn't high on the priority list at the time. And people so arrogantly slander the Palestinians for taking up arms to defend themselves...how dare they?!...and in the same breath excuse Israel's murderous ways and nuclear arsenal. C'mon, at least try to be consistant with your reasoning and excuses.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
the ol' "original sin" argument. this is exactly what i was talking about. your whole post is premised on the opinion that israel's existance is illegitimate, that it's creation was simply stealing.
you are simply ignorant of history. if you read the works of benny morris (who is by no stretch of the imagination soft on israel) or efraim karsh, you'll learn that the history of the years between 1881 and 1949 is not as simple as you conceive it.
the palestinians' right to exist was very high on the priority of all who were involved in the partition of palestine. that's why there were several different proposals for partition between the 1920's and 1947 and the arabs rejected every single one.
what's arrogant is your sanctimonious polemic about israel that has no basis in fact or logic whatsoever. -all based on the self delusion that you know the first thing about jewish or israeli history to qualify you to make such condemnation. let me be the first to tell you, you don't know the first thing about jewish or israeli history. -or for that matter, arab history.
condemning ideologically racist movements who intentionally target civilians is not arrogance, for fuck's sake. defending oneself against those who would (and do) do you harm is not a murderous way. and Israel's nuclear arsenal has never been used for genocidal purposes, or to blackmail another state, or to allow terrorist groups to attack other states with impunity. i dare you to say straight-faced that iran would behave the same way.
Most antizionists are antisemites
This paragraph says alot, I think, about the actions of the Israeli's. First of all, you wanna believe that if it was private ISRAELI land, every square inch would be defined, monitored and heavily protected. But when its Palestinian land, the respect given to private landownership goes out the window. The land was probably taken b/c they simply COULD take it, irrespective of any legal or ethical considerations clearly outlined by Israeli courts themselves. Its an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
You would think with the clarity of Israeli jurisprudence on this matter that any ambiguous claims would have been defined first, and built on later. Why build on/inhabit something when you don't even know if it belongs to you ? Who the fuck operates like that ?
Israel's policy re: the West Bank has always been a clusterfuck. I'll be the first to admit that. I recommend the book "Accidental Empire" for a detailed account of how the government in the late 60's and 70's basically let a religious extremist movement hijack Israeli settlement policy, flagrantly violated Israeli laws, and ties down Israeli soldiers and resources in arrangements that make no economic or security sense.
That said, I presume that this thread's author (if i am wrong, then forgive me) and those on the bandwagon conclude from reports like this that the phenomena of illegal settlements is the heart of the cause of the conflict between Israel the the Palestinians. To think this would be to ignore the stated intentions of Palestinian and other Arab leaders throughout the history of the conflict, and manifestations of popular Arab consensus that can be observed through their media content, their shool curricula, and the corresponding popularity of the leaders with what they say re: Jews and Israel. It's not hard to find this information, for those willing to look and able to see. http://www.memri.org is the best watchdog of Arab and Muslim opinion and culture in the world today. The implications of the information that memri reports is inescapable. The overwhelming majority of Arabs do not accept Israel in any demensions whatsoever. They didn't before the settlements, they didn't before Israel was even created.
If the core cause of the conflict was only what Peace Now's report targets, then the conflict could have been settled in 2000 when Ehud Barak offered Arafat over 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza.
If the Palestinians were only violent in self-defense and resisting occupation, then the first Palestinians to have seen Israeli troops and settlements leave their midst, the Gazans, would not have launched over a thousand rockets and counting at Israeli towns in the year since the Israeli withrawal.
There is a fundamental element to this conflict that most of Israel's critics fail or refuse to acknowledge, and that is the inherent intolerance in the Middle East of non-Arab, non-Muslim sovereignty in any dimensions.
This is not a defense of all settlements. You have to acknowledge that the issue of settlements, in the long run, is simply academic compared to finding a true solution to the conflict.
Most antizionists are antisemites
To break down borders and realise that we are one species and then the true patriotism comes from pride and love of the human race, not from the tribes of which we currently are divided, open your eyes your mind will see! - ME
Unless of course you steal a US Armed Forces recruitment sign...that's about as noble as it gets.
I find this situation very frustrating and I don't pretend to have a solution. I mean, how would we work out giving all the Native AMerican land that was stolen back to them?
I think rational compromise and an effort to understanding is part of the solution. Oh, and not supporting statements involviong the extermination of a certain country it's people.
Not possible ... Nor is removal of Israel. What Israel can do is withdraw to pre-1967 borders and cease occupying more territory, however. It has to happen eventually ... I don't think it will make Hamas and related organizations totally give up their genocidal policies, but it will weaken these groups to some extent, and it just might encourage the Palestinians to focus inward on their own concerns. Its too easy to blame everything on Israel right now. Take that away, and you have a people who can no longer make excuses. Sounds harsh, maybe, and I don't mean it to be. I want peace for the Palestinians in general. I just want them to do their part as well.
Are they getting along well?
Good question,
Much more intergration in todays society is probably the answer, what happened to the Native Americans is very sad.
As far as the Palestinians go, the war for the land is still on going and has not stopped since israel was created. Israel to this day is not independent, they need American arms and money to survive. The only thing left for the native americans are the after effects of being oppressed. what do they have now? casinos and beer.
If the native americans for some reason started taking up arms and fighting for more of what they should have then that's another story. as it is it's sad to see them not in american politics and in high positions in this country.
So can intergration between muslims and jews happen in that area? well hisory say's "yes", before israel, in palestine jews, muslims and christians lived in relative peace which each other.
But remember, it is not on israels agenda to do this. Do you think the zionists will give up it's own genocidal policies? I mean you don't seem to think that hamas will give up theres.
Yes, the sign was noble. I am, of course, the exception.
We can't really turn back now. Whether it be in dealing with Native Americans or Palestinians. But we can decide to stop demonizing these people and rationalizing the continuous murder, abuse and theft of what they have left. Some people act as if Palestinians are no better than savage animals who deserve no sympathy or support. You have to look at the situations from the sides of both perspectives and see them as people with tough decisions to make. I'm frustrated bc our govt and most of the people here in the US only see it from one side and our policy follows. Also, I've never said anything about supporting any extermination.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
That would make everyone left happy. Therefore everyone's happy.
Peace in the Middle East.
"What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact."
Camden 5-28-06
Washington, D.C. 6-22-08
I was just messing with ya...a belated birthday present.
I kinda thought it might have been.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
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Your sarcasm stiffles real debate.
All the land is part of the Palestinian mandate. However, when Israel was formed, a lot of the native people we expulsed from their land. The problem with Israel is not that it wants to exist or that it does exist. The problem is that it wants to be a Jewish State. If the Palestinians, or in general, the Arabs are allowed to stay in the area, or the ones that were expulsed were allowed to return, they would outnumber the Jews and Israel would have to become a liberal democracy, not a Jewish nation.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=211301
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way