MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

The issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is not only a decisive factor within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, but equally a determining element in the future of peace in the region altogether.

The concept of Israeli settlements is driven by political and ideological considerations. In practical terms, this dictates that the very existence of Israeli settlements serves the strategic, military, and economic interests of Israel as well as its advocacy of national assertiveness.

The establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including east Jerusalem) began in 1967 as a means of controlling and annexing Palestinian land occupied during the “1967 War.”

On 28 th of June 1967 Israel unilaterally expanded the borders of east Jerusalem from 6.5 km² (the boundaries as designated by Jordan) to 70.5 km² to include lands from many West Bank villages while avoiding populated Palestinian areas.

The West Bank, including east Jerusalem, covers an area of 5,854 km², while Gaza strip covers an area of 365 km²

According to Israeli data there are 141 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. However, satellite images show 282 Jewish built-up areas in the West Bank including east Jerusalem and 26 in Gaza. This is excluding military sites. These built-up areas cover 150.5 km² (GIS database, ARIJ, 2000). Israeli sources consider those Jewish built-up areas in east Jerusalem as neighborhoods of the municipal Jerusalem and not as settlements.

“Expansion” of exisiting settlements is a policy adopted by the Israeli government. These expansions are in many cases larger than the settlements themselves. Expansions take place on confiscated Palestinian land.

An aerial survey conducted by the Peace Now movement shows that at least 10 new settlement sites, including a total of 65 structures, have been established in the West Bank during the period July-September 2001.

A total of 25 new settlement sites have been established in the West Bank since the prime ministerial election in February. This does not include the Gaza Strip.

In November last year the government announced it planned to spend 1.2 Billion NIS (300 million US dollars) in 2001 on the settlers. At the same time, it was reported that in Atarot industrial settlement near Qalandia 60 factories (of a total 200) closed down (Al Quds 24-3-2001). Hence the growth in the settlements is by no means spontaneous or self-perpetuating but rather funded, supported and maintained by the Israeli government despite it being an economic burden.

The Israeli authorities have already approved over 40 outposts that were erected since 1996. These outposts are scattered all over the West Bank and serve as nuclei for new settlements.

Most recently, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality’s approval of the new Jewish settlement of E-1 located adjacent to Ma’ale Adumim colony, the initiation of a settlement in the Ras al-Amoud neighborhood of east Jerusalem and the continued construction of Har Homa colony on Jabal Abu Ghneim have all created more explosive realities on the ground.

Israel has created different construction regulations for Palestinians and Jewish settlers. These regulations are strikingly biased towards the interests of the latter.

The issue of settlement activity in the east Jerusalem area is particularly significant and controversial. The installation of settlements around Jerusalem has left the mostly Arab-populated eastern part of the city almost completely isolated from the West Bank. The implications of this are gradually undermining the long envisaged concept of Jerusalem being the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Figures released recently by the Israeli Housing and Construction Ministry show the public construction of 1,943 housing units in the occupied territories in the year 2000, while Labour Prime Minister Barak was in power. This is the highest number since the now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Likud) served as housing and construction minister in 1992 (Haaretz March 5th 2001).

Currently, the total number of settlers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip number around 400,000 of which nearly 200,000 are in east Jerusalem alone.

The total number of east Jerusalem residents is close to 550,000. The number of Palestinian Jerusalem residents in 2001 is 367,003 with a growth rate of 3.2%.

The average growth rate for Jews in Israel is 2.0% per year (the rate including non-Jews is 2.5% per year). However, the population of the Jewish settlements grows at around 8.5% per year, which amounts to over four times the Israeli growth rate.

Between 1996-98 there were 130 settlements that had an average annual growth of over 2%. That means that over 80% of the settlements grow at rates higher than the overall Israeli average.

The frequent refusal of Israeli authorities to grant construction permits to Palestinians who wish to build on privately owned land has left the latter with no choice but to take extreme risks in building regardless of the required Israeli approval. Sweeping Israeli bulldozers more often than not, follow such risks. Hundreds of Palestinian houses are demolished every year.

Since the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993, uptill august 2001: more than 70,000 acres of land have been confiscated, over 674 houses demolished and 282,000 trees have been uprooted in the West Bank alone. The reasons given for these activities include: building without a permit, the Absentee Law (which states that land not in use for three continuous years is subject to Israeli confiscation), and security purposes.

The area occupied by the settlements in the West Bank doubled in the seven years between 1992 and 1999 from 77 km² (which represented 1.3% of the West Bank) to 150 km² (which represents 2.6% of the West Bank).

The term bypass roads came with the advent of the Oslo Accords and were not present before. These roads are used by the Israelis to link settlements with each other and with Israel. In the agreements they are called "Lateral Roads" but people usually call them "bypass" roads because they are meant to circumvent (i.e. bypass) Palestinian built up areas. These roads are of course under Israeli control and entail a 50 to 75 meter buffer zone on each side of the road in which no construction is allowed.

The extension of Ma’ale Adumim in Jerusalem, which was approved by former Israeli defence minister, Moshe Arens, has renewed worries concerning the status of Jerusalem within the context of the final status agreement. The extension of settlements adds more volatility to an already explosive situation; however, the installation of “new” ones is disastrous in terms of the peace process. This is being asserted here in light of proposals to construct new housing units around the eastern part of Jerusalem (between Al-Nabi Ya’acoob area and Adam settlement).

Israel has been neglecting the environmental effects that are imposed by the settlements on neighbouring Palestinian communities. Most of the settlements have not developed sewage treatment plants; which implies that sewage is often allowed to run into the valleys, threatening neighbouring Palestinian towns and villages in terms of agriculture and health.

Israel’s legal responsibility towards the territories it occupied in June 1967 is bound by the international consensus embodied within the contexts of The Hague Convention of 1907 and The Geneva Convention of 1949.

It is clearly dictated by The Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons that “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.” (Article 49, Paragraph 6)

The very existence of Israeli settlements is a direct violation of internationally binding agreements and regulations; international humanitarian law explicitly prohibits the occupying state to make permanent changes that are not, in the first place, intended to benefit the population of the occupied.

Israel’s colonisation policies towards Palestinian land have been the subject of constant censure by several United Nations resolutions. The most recent resolution condemning Israel for continuing to build settlements in occupied territories was passed by the General Assembly on July 16, 1997.

Note: for deeper insight into UN resolutions on Israeli settlements, please refer to www.un.org/Depts/dpa/qpal/stml_f.htm

Former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, had commented once that if he had remained in power, he would have stretched peace negotiations for over ten years; his aim being to settle as many Jews in negotiable Palestinian territories until there would be nothing to negotiate for. It is, indeed, striking to the modern eye how such colonialist approaches are being advocated today by Israeli hardliners.

Sources:

  1. ARIJ: Applied Research Insititue Jerusalem,
    www.arij.org
  2. Monitering Israeli Colonizing Activities in West Bank & Gaza,
    www.poica.org
  3. PASSIA “Settlements” March 2001,
    www.passia.org
  4. Peacenow,
    www.peacenow.org
 
 
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