Israeli Settlements Exceed Boundaries, Report Says

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank use only 12 percent of the land allocated to them, but one-third of the territory they do use lies outside their official jurisdictions, according to a new report released today byPeace Now, a dovish advocacy group.

According to the report, based on official data released by the Israeli government following a court order, 90 percent of the settlements sprawl beyond their official boundaries despite the large amount of unused land already allocated to them.

More than 10 percent of the land included within the official jurisdiction of the settlements is owned privately by Palestinians, as is 70 percent of the land the settlements control outside their official boundaries, said the report, whose findings were published today in the Haaretz newspaper.

According to Dror Etkes, who prepared the report with Hagit Ofran of Peace Now, the official data show how the government has taken West Bank land beyond the needs of the settlements in order to prevent Palestinian construction there and to add a zone of separation between the settlers and the Palestinians.

But once an area is closed to Palestinians, settlers have seized adjacent Palestinian lands, often privately owned, without being stopped by the army, which is the legal sovereign in the occupied territories."

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[theoldman]

1. And people wonder why there is a problem between the Jews

and Muslims.

[Tom Joad]

3. There is a problem between colonialists and their victims... it is NOT a religious conflict

[pelsar]

5. tell hamas that...

it is NOT a religious conflict.....yea right...

Hamas....you know the guys who control gaza now and have plans for the westbank....oh did i forget hizballa, the party of god? the ones who controlled s. lebanon up until the last war?

[breakaleg]

6. It's so easy to ignore the last 40 years isn't it? I'm happy that you feel this recent

development has let Israel off the hook for 40 years of crap in the blink of an eye.

[LeftishBrit]

8. No, it doesn't let Israel off the hook...

Nor do the failings of Israel (and other countries) over the years let Hamas off the hook.

[pelsar]

9. welcome to July 2007

islamic theocracy now control gaza and they have made it clear that its a religious matter....and they have their eyes on the westbank as well.

i guess this is what you meant when you wrote a while back, that how the Palestinians govern themselves is their business....oh yea did i mention the goal of the hamas party?...the one that doesnt accept israel in any shape or form based on its religious version of islam?..you know the one that permits throwing people off buildings, executing them infront of their families, keeping them from returning home because they would have to go through israel....

and the one that is planning on taking over the westbank as well?.....that hamas...the one whos beliefs and actions are based on their version of islam, and didnt they win the election?.......and its not a religious matter?......why is it hamas disagrees and some western "progressives" seem to know better?

(bet i cant get an answer out of that one.....)

and my perennial question: which is better secular occupation by israel or religious occupation by fanatic religious people of the same gene pool? (hint depending upon the polls and which Palestinians are asked up to 70% prefer israeli rule)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/06/africa/mideast.1-69311.php
Another Palestinian writer, Bassem al-Nabris, a poet from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, wrote in the Arabic electronic newspaper Elaph that if there were a referendum in the Gaza Strip on the question of whether people would like the Israeli occupation to return, "half the population would vote 'yes.' But in practice," he continued, "I believe that the number of those in favor is at least 70 percent, if not more

(it means the settlements are not core of the problem and as gaza has shown so clearly removing them can in fact make things worse for citizen palestenain...but does anybody really care?....not the egyptians, not the ISM....not a whole lot of people it turns out)

I always find it fascinating when the "western progressive" seems to know whats good for the palestenains...kind of reminds me of the colonial period

[LeftishBrit]

7. There have been problems between Jews and Muslims since forever...

not to mention between different Muslim sects.

Just as with other religious factions.

I'm strongly opposed to the settlements, but don't think they can be blamed for all the religious and ethnic conflicts in the region.

[pelsar]

10. leftishBrit...

being opposed to the settlements does not mean putting one heads in the sand and pretending that if there were no settlements peace would reign throughout the region. And i really dont believe you have to constantly mention that you are against them, to me it sounds like some kind of "groveling" to the "progressives" to be accepted.

I'm hardly a fan of the settlers, nor of their goals, nor of their beliefs....none of that has anything to do with the reality on the ground. Of the israeli withdrawls from the sinai, from gaza from lebanon. Only one led to peace, with egypt and that was because Egypt has a strong central govt with a security servcie that answers to a single master. Gaza and Lebanon withdrawls led to populations living under theocratic, dictatorships based on militias. Both continued to attack israel across the intl borders. Its quite reasonable to assume the same would happen with any withdrawl from the westbank.

the whole "mantra" of israeli colonialism, settlements root of all evil, human rights violations etc are a big joke when it comes to what would actually happen to the palestenains once israel left: in a word, gaza. Does that phase those whos mantra is: israeli withdrawl?....no. And the reason is not because they actually care about the human rights violations (gazas little civil war and continued violence made that pretty clear) its more in line with the belief that israel, the colonialistic country has made a "bigger wrong" which must be corrected, irreguardless of what happens to the palestenians afterwards...for that is not the issue, nor is the history of the various ethnic conflicts...its all about israel and nothing else.

[Scurrilous]

2. Construction and development of settlements beyond the official limits of jurisdiction - July 2007

A special report presented by the “Peace Now” Settlement Watch

http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&fld=495&docid=2411

One of the recurring claims of the various Israel government spokespersons over the past few decades regarding construction in the settlements was that it only occurs within the “boundaries of the settlement”. Words of that nature were even uttered by Prime Minister Olmert during a recent meeting with Abdullah, the King of Jordan (May 15, 2007), during which he promised that: “the construction of settlements is only being carried out within the approved designated lines”. However, through the years, Israel’s spokespersons made deceptive and manipulative use of the concept of “settlement areas” in order to continue, in fact, to make it possible for settlements to grow and develop without almost any restrictions. The construction in settlements “within their boundaries” continued, in contradiction to the commitment of those very same governments to maintain “political restraint”, where the vision of a future Palestinian state plays a major role. In this context, it is important to remember that the State of Israel’s official position is that no new settlement has been established anywhere in the West Bank for over a decade. As an aside, we should like to add that this was the reason that a need arose for the establishment of “outposts”, where the goal was to circumvent the ban on the establishment of official new settlements.

This report was written in order to achieve three goals:

A. Expose the system of considerations which guided the architects of the settlement project when they drew up the boundaries of settlement jurisdiction;

B. Discuss the way that Israeli governments used these jurisdiction to promote and reinforce their political goals, first and foremost of which was the expansion of the settlement project; and

C. Provide an accurate comparison between the official and actual boundaries of the settlements.

In order to read the full report click here

[Scurrilous]

4. Talks stalled, settlements expanding

<snip>

"At the summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh two weeks ago, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he "has no intention of delaying talks on the establishment of a Palestinian state." A few days later, "political sources in Jerusalem" pledged that Olmert "intends in the coming months to evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank." Senior government spokesmen have liberally dispensed such declarations in recent years. A short drive along West Bank roads demonstrates that talk is one thing, action another; while the government talks about "a political horizon," in the form of two states, Israel's actions on the ground and its scandalous failings are pushing this solution off toward the horizon.

A new report from Peace Now, details of which appeared this past Friday in Haaretz, reveals the jurisdictions of 92 out of 164 settlements, outposts and industrial zones in the West Bank were expanded or redrawn after the Oslo Accords. The report, which relies on Civil Administration data, further discloses that merely 9 percent of all areas under the settlements' jurisdiction have been built on, and just another 12 percent has been put to some use. Furthermore, despite the broad areas under their jurisdiction, 90 percent of the settlements exceed their jurisdictions, and about a third of the areas that settlements effectively control are outside their jurisdictions - for the most part on Palestinian land.

In High Court of Justice deliberations in recent years, it emerged that the separation fence, which was designed to fill a security need, is also being exploited for realizing the settlement development plans at the expense of Palestinian property and well-being. The former defense minister, Amir Peretz, did not keep his promise to reexamine the fence route and order it amended at every site where it was found that Palestinian land was encroached upon. Talia Sasson's March 2005 outposts report, which recommended measures for restraining the real estate free-for-all in the territories, is also gathering dust in the archives.

At worst, the government is being negligent in thwarting the land theft in the West Bank, out of a failure to grasp the ramifications of this scandal for the chance to implement a two-state solution. At the absolute worst, the government is exercising a deliberate policy, the purpose of which is to reduce the living space of the Palestinian population in Area C (which is under full Israeli control), transfer the land reserves to Israeli citizens and foil the establishment of an independent and sustainable Palestinian state. Either way, this grave phenomenon is a blatant violation of principled obligations that Israel undertook in the Oslo Accords, not to take any unilateral steps to change matters until negotiations over the permanent status of the territories have been completed."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/879244.html

[Tom Joad]

11. Israel expanding settlements? Sounds like what happened following Oslo accords

When Arafat did everything that was asked of him, Israel went on its most rapid increase of settlements ever.

So now that Abbas is doing everything US/Israel asks of him, Israel is rapidly expanding the settlements. The MO for the criminal Israeli regime.

Not only is the Israeli regime not making "painful concessions", it is doing all it can to devour most of the West Bank, and leave nothing but small cantons for the Palestinians.