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Israel seizes more land
flywallyfly
Posts: 1,453
I'm guessing as soon as the Palestinians react to this land grab then they will be labeled terrorists or the aggressors.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_israel_pa ... smHrUDW7oF
Israel seizes land for settlement expansion
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 16, 3:44 pm ET
EFRAT, West Bank – Plans to expand a West Bank settlement by up to 2,500 homes drew Palestinian condemnation Monday and presented an early test for President Barack Obama, whose Mideast envoy is well known for opposing such construction.
Israel opened the way for possible expansion of the Efrat settlement by taking control of a nearby West Bank hill of 423 acres. The rocky plot was recently designated state land and is part of a master plan that envisions the settlement growing from 9,000 to 30,000 residents, Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi said.
Israeli officials said any new construction would require several years more of planning and stages of approval.
The outgoing government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said it reserves the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs that it wants to annex as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. Efrat is in one of those blocs.
The composition of Israel's next government is not clear yet, because last week's elections were inconclusive. However, right-wing parties are given a better chance to form a ruling coalition, with hard-line leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.
Speaking to U.S. Jewish leaders Monday, the two contenders for leading the new Israeli government expressed their differences over the Palestinian issue.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whose centrist Kadima party won 28 of the 120 seats in parliament, said Israel must withdraw from "parts of the Land of Israel," a reference to the West Bank, in a peace deal.
Netanyahu, whose hawkish Likud won 27 seats, said he does not want to govern Palestinians but insisted on Israeli control of borders, airspace and electronic communications.
Netanyahu supports settlement expansion and has derided peace talks with the Palestinians as a waste of time, saying he would focus instead on trying to improve the Palestinian economy. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called Netanyahu's approach unacceptable, and his aides said recently that peace talks can resume only if settlement construction is halted.
"We oppose settlement activity in principle, and if the settlement activity doesn't stop, any meetings (with the Israelis) will be worthless," Abbas said Monday.
Settlement expansion is likely to create friction not only with the Palestinians, but with Obama, whose Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has long pushed for a freeze on the expansion of Jewish settlements.
Still, settlements have grown steadily, including during the past year of U.S.-backed peace talks that ended without results.
Nearly 290,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements today, or 95,000 more than in May 2001, when Mitchell led a U.S. fact-finding mission to the West Bank to find ways of ending several months of Israeli-Palestinian violence and resuming peace talks.
At the time, Mitchell called on Palestinian authorities to rein in militants involved in deadly bombings and shootings against Israelis, and he said Israel must freeze all settlement construction.
The newly designated state land, called "Eitam Hill" by settlers, is more than 2 kilometers (a mile) north of Efrat and just east of a cluster of Palestinian towns and villages, with biblical Bethlehem at the center.
Abdel Rahman al-Haj, a Palestinian plumber in Bethlehem, said that he owns 5.5 acres (2 hectares) between Efrat and Eitam Hill and that intruders with bulldozers had repeatedly tried to clear a dirt road across his land since last month, in an apparent attempt to create access to Eitam Hill. The dirt road was clearly visible during a visit Monday.
Al-Haj said he filed a complaint with the Israeli police and obtained a stop-work order from Israel's Civil Administration, the branch of the Israeli military that deals with West Bank land use. Civil Administration officials had no immediate comment on the case.
Revivi, the Efrat mayor, said he was unaware of bulldozers clearing al-Haj's land. "Everything is done in accordance with what the government is allowing us to do," he said.
However, Efrat municipal engineer Moshe Ben Elisha wrote in a recent edition of the settlement's newspaper, Efraton, that "efforts are currently under way to create continuity between Olive Hill (an area of Efrat) and Eitam Hill." He did not elaborate.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group involved in the case, said Monday that over the years Israel's government has assigned almost all areas designated as state land to settlements. Yesh Din said that is a violation of international law, which requires an occupying power to act for the benefit of the local population.
"Declaring these huge amounts of land as `state land,' as done by the Civil Administration, is only for expanding the settlement and not for the local Palestinian population," Yesh Din said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_israel_pa ... smHrUDW7oF
Israel seizes land for settlement expansion
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 16, 3:44 pm ET
EFRAT, West Bank – Plans to expand a West Bank settlement by up to 2,500 homes drew Palestinian condemnation Monday and presented an early test for President Barack Obama, whose Mideast envoy is well known for opposing such construction.
Israel opened the way for possible expansion of the Efrat settlement by taking control of a nearby West Bank hill of 423 acres. The rocky plot was recently designated state land and is part of a master plan that envisions the settlement growing from 9,000 to 30,000 residents, Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi said.
Israeli officials said any new construction would require several years more of planning and stages of approval.
The outgoing government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said it reserves the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs that it wants to annex as part of a final peace deal with the Palestinians. Efrat is in one of those blocs.
The composition of Israel's next government is not clear yet, because last week's elections were inconclusive. However, right-wing parties are given a better chance to form a ruling coalition, with hard-line leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.
Speaking to U.S. Jewish leaders Monday, the two contenders for leading the new Israeli government expressed their differences over the Palestinian issue.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whose centrist Kadima party won 28 of the 120 seats in parliament, said Israel must withdraw from "parts of the Land of Israel," a reference to the West Bank, in a peace deal.
Netanyahu, whose hawkish Likud won 27 seats, said he does not want to govern Palestinians but insisted on Israeli control of borders, airspace and electronic communications.
Netanyahu supports settlement expansion and has derided peace talks with the Palestinians as a waste of time, saying he would focus instead on trying to improve the Palestinian economy. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called Netanyahu's approach unacceptable, and his aides said recently that peace talks can resume only if settlement construction is halted.
"We oppose settlement activity in principle, and if the settlement activity doesn't stop, any meetings (with the Israelis) will be worthless," Abbas said Monday.
Settlement expansion is likely to create friction not only with the Palestinians, but with Obama, whose Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has long pushed for a freeze on the expansion of Jewish settlements.
Still, settlements have grown steadily, including during the past year of U.S.-backed peace talks that ended without results.
Nearly 290,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements today, or 95,000 more than in May 2001, when Mitchell led a U.S. fact-finding mission to the West Bank to find ways of ending several months of Israeli-Palestinian violence and resuming peace talks.
At the time, Mitchell called on Palestinian authorities to rein in militants involved in deadly bombings and shootings against Israelis, and he said Israel must freeze all settlement construction.
The newly designated state land, called "Eitam Hill" by settlers, is more than 2 kilometers (a mile) north of Efrat and just east of a cluster of Palestinian towns and villages, with biblical Bethlehem at the center.
Abdel Rahman al-Haj, a Palestinian plumber in Bethlehem, said that he owns 5.5 acres (2 hectares) between Efrat and Eitam Hill and that intruders with bulldozers had repeatedly tried to clear a dirt road across his land since last month, in an apparent attempt to create access to Eitam Hill. The dirt road was clearly visible during a visit Monday.
Al-Haj said he filed a complaint with the Israeli police and obtained a stop-work order from Israel's Civil Administration, the branch of the Israeli military that deals with West Bank land use. Civil Administration officials had no immediate comment on the case.
Revivi, the Efrat mayor, said he was unaware of bulldozers clearing al-Haj's land. "Everything is done in accordance with what the government is allowing us to do," he said.
However, Efrat municipal engineer Moshe Ben Elisha wrote in a recent edition of the settlement's newspaper, Efraton, that "efforts are currently under way to create continuity between Olive Hill (an area of Efrat) and Eitam Hill." He did not elaborate.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group involved in the case, said Monday that over the years Israel's government has assigned almost all areas designated as state land to settlements. Yesh Din said that is a violation of international law, which requires an occupying power to act for the benefit of the local population.
"Declaring these huge amounts of land as `state land,' as done by the Civil Administration, is only for expanding the settlement and not for the local Palestinian population," Yesh Din said.
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Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
Article 49
'The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'
How 90 Peruvians became the latest Jewish settlers
When a delegation of rabbis travelled to Lima to convert a group of South American Indians to Judaism, they added just one condition: come and live with us in Israel. As soon as these new Jews arrived in the country, they were bussed straight to settlements in the disputed territories. So how are they coping? Neri Livneh tracks them down
The Guardian, Wednesday 7 August 2002
'...."We are of Indian origin," says Nachshon Ben-Haim, formerly Pedro Mendosa, "but in Peru, in the Andes, there is no Indian culture left. Everyone has become Christian, and before we became Jews, we also were Christians who went to church."
....Ben-Haim is not bothered by the fact that by being sent to a settlement, he has also been effectively recruited to a particular political group: "We knew we were coming to a place that is called 'territories' because people we know immigrated earlier and are living in the settlements in the territories. But I have no problem with that because I do not consider the territories to be occupied territories. You cannot conquer what has in any case belonged to you since the time of the patriarch, Abraham."
Ben-Haim says that after he finishes the Hebrew course, he may join the army, "because I wasn't in the army in Peru and that is something I lack, and also because I want to defend the country and if there is no choice, I will kill Arabs. But I am sure that Jews kill Arabs only for self-defence and justice, but Arabs do it because they like to kill."
He bases this belief on his scientific view of Judaism: "The Arab has the instinct of murder and killing like all gentiles, and only Jews do not have that instinct - that is a genetic fact."
But if you were not born a Jew genetically, don't you have that instinct? "Maybe it was there, but it makes no difference because now we are all Jews."
B'Tselem May 2002
Land Grab: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank
....Conclusions
Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Under this regime, Israel has stolen hundreds of thousands of dunam of land from the Palestinians. Israel has used this land to establish dozens of settlements in the West Bank and to populate them with hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens. Israel prohibits the Palestinians as a group from entering and using these lands, and uses the settlements to justify numerous violations of the Palestinians' human rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a livelihood, and the right to freedom of movement. The drastic change that Israel has made in the map of the West Bank prevents any real possibility for the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state as part of the Palestinians' right to self-determination.
The settlers, on the contrary, benefit from all the rights available to Israeli citizens living within the Green Line, and in some cases are even granted additional rights. The great effort that Israel has invested in the settlement enterprise - in financial, legal and bureaucratic terms – has turned the settlements into civilian enclaves in an area under military rule, with the settlers being given priority status. To perpetuate this situation, which is a priori illegal, Israel has continuously breached the rights of the Palestinians.
Particularly evident is Israel's manipulative use of legal tools in order to give the settlement enterprise an impression of legality. When Jordanian legislation served Israel's goals, Israel adhered to this legislation, arguing that international law obliges it to respect the legislation in effect prior to the occupation; in practice, this legislation was used in a cynical and biased manner. On the other hand, when this legislation interfered with Israel's plans, it was changed in a cavalier manner through military legislation and Israel established new rules to serve its interests. In so doing, Israel trampled on numerous restrictions and prohibitions established in the international conventions to which it is party, and which were intended to limit infringement of human rights and to protect populations under occupation.
The settlements are unlawful, and their presence leads to the violation of human rights. Accordingly, B'Tselem demands that the Israeli government act to vacate all the settlements. This process must take place while respecting the human rights of the settlers, including payment of compensation.
Vacating all the settlements is obviously a complex and protracted task. However, a number of interim steps can be taken to minimize the violation of human rights and international law. Among other steps, the Israeli government should:
* Cease all new construction in the settlements, either to build new settlements or to expand existing settlements;
* Freeze the planning and construction of new by-pass roads, and cease expropriation and seizure of land for this purpose;
* Return to the Palestinian communities all the non-built-up areas within the municipal boundaries of the settlements and the local councils;
* Abolish the special planning committees in the settlements, and hence the powers of the local authorities to prepare outline plans and issue building permits;
* Cease the policy of providing incentives that encourage Israeli citizens to move to the settlements, and direct the resources to encourage settlers to relocate to areas within the borders of the State of Israel