۱۳۸۷ اسفند ۹, جمعه

Settlement expansion


From 1967 to the end of 2007, Israel established 121 settlements in the West Bank that were recognized by the Interior Ministry as “communities”, even though some of them contain stretches of land on which the built-up area is not contiguous. 12 other settlements are located on land annexed by Israel in 1967 and made part of Jerusalem. There are additional 100 or so unrecognized settlements, referred to in the media as “outposts.” The 16 settlements built in the Gaza Strip and three settlements in the northern West Bank were dismantled in 2005 during implementation of the "disengagement plan."
As part of the regime, Israel has stolen thousands of dunams of land from the Palestinians. On this land, Israel has established dozens of settlements in which hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians now live. Israel forbids Palestinians to enter and use these lands and uses the settlements to justify numerous violations of Palestinian rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a living, and freedom of movement. The sharp changes Israel made to the map of the West Bank make a viable Palestinian state impossible as part of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
The settlers, on the other hand, benefit from all rights given to citizens of Israel who live inside the Green Line, and in some instances, even additional rights. The great effort Israel has expended in the settlement enterprise – financially, legally, and bureaucratically – has turned the settlements into civilian enclaves within an area under military rule and has given the settlers a preferred status. To perpetuate this unlawful situation, Israel has continuously violated the Palestinians’ human rights.
Especially conspicuous is Israel’s manipulative use of the law to create a semblance of legality for the settlement enterprise. So long as Jordanian law assisted Israel in advancing its goals, it seized the argument that international law requires that an occupying state apply the law in effect in the territory prior to occupation, thus construing international law in a cynical and tendentious way. When Jordanian law was unfavorable for Israel, Israel did not hesitate to revoke it though military legislation and develop new rules to meet its ends. In doing so, Israel tramples on international agreements to which it is party – agreements which are intended to reduce human rights violations and protect people under occupation.
Because the very establishment of the settlements is illegal, and in light of the human rights violations resulting from the existence of the settlements, B’Tselem demands that Israel evacuate the settlements. The action must be done in a way that respects the settlers’ human rights, including the payment of compensation.
Clearly, evacuation of the settlements will be complex and will take time; however there are intermediate steps that can be taken immediately so as to reduce, to the extent possible, human rights violations and breaches of international law. For example, the government should cease new construction in the settlements – both the building of new settlements and the expansion of existing settlements. It must also freeze the planning and building of new bypass roads and must cease expropriating and seizing land intended for the bypass roads. The government must return to Palestinian villages all the non-built-up land that was placed within the municipal jurisdiction of the settlements and the regional councils, eliminate the planning boards in the settlements, and, as a result thereof, revoke the power of the local authorities to draw up outline plans and grant building permits. Also, the government must cease the granting of incentives to encourage Israeli citizens to move to settlements and must make resources available to encourage settlers to move inside Israel’s borders.
 27 Feb. '09: plans
Following the Oslo agreement, Israel made a commitment to the United States that it would not build new settlements or expand existing ones, except to meet “natural growth.” This narrow allowance, never defined, was utilized by Israel to greatly expand settlements and build new settlements, such as Modi’in Ilit. n April 2003,
Israel for the first time undertook to freeze settlement activity, including natural growth. The commitment was made in the framework of the “road map” agreed to by Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the Quartet (the US, the European Union, the UN, and Russia), which provides an outline for achieving a two-state permanent resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In November 2007, at the joint declaration made at the Annapolis Conference, in which Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the Quartet, and Arab League states took part, Israel confirmed its commitment to the road map’s principles.
Despite its commitment to freeze building in settlements, protocols of the Supreme Planning Committee, in the Civil Administration, reveal plans for substantial expansion of settlements. The relevant protocols, of the Supreme Planning Committee’s Environment Subcommittee, were made in 2007 and 2008 and dealt with the treatment of sewage of settlements. B’Tselem received these protocols under the Freedom of Information Act. The plans uncovered also relate to anticipated expansion of settlements lying east of the route of the Separation Barrier, which some, most Israeli politicians present as Israel’s future border. These plans are in their initial planning stage, and none have been approved by the political echelon. However, the fact that the primary planning body in the West Bank considered plans to build thousands of housing units in settlements indicates that the West Bank’s planning bodies flout the official Israeli commitment not to expand settlements in the coming


years.
The settlement of Gevaot. Photo: Eyal Reuveni, B'Tselem.Examples of settlement-expansion planning follow.
In the Eztion Bloc, a neighborhood, containing 550 apartments, is planned for the Gevaot area of the Alon Shvut settlement. Plans for building in this area, which currently is home to only twelve families, call for the building of 4,450 apartments. The construction has not yet been approved by the Defense Ministry, but the Environmental Subcommittee approved construction of a sewage-treatment facility, intended for 800 to 1,000 apartments, for the new neighborhood. At the hearing, it was also decided that the facility would treat the sewage from the adjacent Beit Ayin settlement. According to the protocol, 2,000 new apartments are planned for construction in Beit Ayin, which currently has some 120
families.
In the RimonimandEinav settlements, which lie east of the Separation Barrier, sewage treatment has been arranged as a first stage in advancing building plans. In Rimonim, 254 new apartments are planned, and in Einav, two plans for additional construction The jurisdiction area of the settlement Mevo Dotan which is also east of the
barrier, is expected to expand.
The Ma’aleh Adumim municipality prepared a sewage-treatment plan for the settlement, including the planned construction of 3,500 apartments in E-1, in the framework of treatment of the sewage from SHAI [Samaria and Judea] Police Headquarters, which was moved to E-1.
In Kfar Adumim, the Subcommittee approved a sewage-treatment plan based on a projected doubling in size of the settlement, to 5,600 residents, in “the coming years.”
The Civil Administration’s planning office instructed the Eshkolot settlement to treat its sewage in accordance with the “full occupancy” plans of the settlement, which are expected to quintuple the settlement’s


population.
Building of settlements breaches international humanitarian law, which prohibits the occupying power to transfer its population to occupied territory and to make permanent changes there. Establishment and expansion of the settlements result in continuous and extensive infringement of Palestinian rights, among them the right to self-determination, the right to equality, the right of property, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to water, the right to sanitation and the right to freedom of movement.


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