Settlements

Olive trees make way for Har Homa settlement

Palestinian olive groves dwarfed by illegal Israeli "Har Homa" settlement June 09

A WORK IN PROGRESS

ARIJ – 2Dec09: Settlement expansion shows no sign of stopping. The ongoing construction of Israeli settlements, including outposts, and the transfer of Jewish settlers to Palestinian land is illegal under international law and represents a fundamental obstacle to the formation of a Palestinian state.
Israel continues to plan, build and allocate extensive resources to the settlement industry, despite international calls for its dismantlement. Israel continues to take unilateral action and neglect its obligations under international law, and successive peace agreements, to dismantle the settlement enterprise. Hillary Clinton, US secretary of State recently endorsed the Israeli stance that the renewal of ‘peace’ talks should not rest on a settlement freeze.  This is despite the fact that under the US brokered 2003 ‘Road Map’ Israel was required to immediately dismantle settlement outposts erected since 2001 and freeze all settlement activity, including ‘natural’ growth. The US has also conceded to Israeli defiance and changed its recent demands on settlements from a complete ‘freeze’ to merely ‘restraint’.
In Dec 2007- September 2009 Israel issued 76,818 housing unit tenders for the expansion of settlements. In the 2009-2010 Israeli budget (created in June 2009), more than $250 million were allocated over the next two years for settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.  These financial and political commitments to the expansion of the settlement industry show a clear trajectory which weak US and international pressure have failed to alter.

Planned Housing Units and Tenders issued for settlement activity
In 2009, over 28,000 housing unit tenders were issued for construction in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory. Over 12,000 of these tenders were issued in Jerusalem. Indeed, between 2007 and 2009, an estimated 97% of housing units were issued west of the separation wall, in Jerusalem and other areas located between the Wall and the 1949 Armistice Line. Since Prime Minister Netanyahu came to power in March 2009 he has approved 11,865 housing units in Israeli settlements. Of these settlements 73%, 8,623 housing units, were in occupied East Jerusalem.

Financial Commitment to the settlement industry
The sheer number of tenders issued for housing units in the occupied Palestinian territory illustrates the relentless approach by Israel of expanding the settlement enterprise. In addition to proposed housing units, financial support to sustain settlement activities has also been allocated over the next two years, rendering weak and contradictory US pressure to halt such activity completely redundant. In an Israeli financial report for the fiscal year, 2009-2010, over $50 million is reportedly being allocated to expand the illegal settlements of Ma’ale Adumim in Jerusalem and Har Homa in Bethlehem. Over 900 housing units are reportedly planned for Har Homa in 2010.
Over $106 million is being allocated to expand infrastructure links, such as roads, bypasses etc, between settlement centers and Jerusalem, which will simply normalize the existence of settlements and integrate them further in Israel proper. For example, in the 2009-2010 budget, over 27 million shekels for 2009 and 28 million shekels for 2010 are proposed for subsidizing transportation for settlers and ultra-orthodox Jews. A reported 80 million shekels is also being spent on a highway to connect the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev to Modi’in and Tel Aviv via bypass road number 45.
Furthermore, over 160 million shekels over 2009 – 2010 is planned for security purposes in the settlements, including guards, armored transportation and 24 hour security. Indeed, due to increased lobbying, every settler is entitled to have his private vehicle armored in case of attack, this despite the fact that it is often extremist settlers who attack Palestinians, causing physical and agricultural damage.
In addition to financial support from the state, it must be noted that an estimated 60% of settlement construction is funded by private money. This presents legal loopholes and increases the complexity of completely halting settlement construction. One such example is that of Irving Moskowitz, an American multi-millionaire who actively supports settler movements and Israeli organizations which aim to ‘Judaize’ Jerusalem and the West Bank. It is estimated that Moskowitz has provided over $190 million to settlers movements for construction purposes.
The media image that ‘pressure’ is being put on Israel to halt settlement construction is misleading. Israel has consistently neglected its obligations under international law and peace agreements and continues to fund and encourage the expansion of the settlement enterprise. The US administration has backtracked significantly on previous demands on Israel, illustrating how the financial support provided by the US severely limits its capacity to apply the necessary pressure and force Israel to face legal repercussions for its failures, which could also include the US administrations support of Israel in deflecting the Goldstone report.
The substantial financial support allocated to the settlement industry in the 2009-2010 Israeli budget, the sheer number of housing unit tenders issued in 2009 and proposed for 2010, in addition to private financial contributions, and the unfaltering political, and financial, support provided by the US to Israel, illustrate that the settlement industry shows no sign of stopping, rather, its trajectory is one of expansion and consolidation.

MAPS:

Interactive maps guardian.co.uk – FACTS ON THE GROUND

ARTICLES (more listed under JERUSALEM and LAND DEALS)

RINAT, Zafrir: “Haredi town planned where Arab construction banned” Haaretz, 8Sep09 (with thanks to Sol Salbe)
BLACK, Ian: “West Bank settlements: an impassable obstacle on the road to peace”, The Guardian, 23Aug09
ZIZEK, Slavoj: “Quiet slicing of the West Bank makes abstract prayers for peace obsolete” The Guardian, 19Aug09
von MITTELSTAEDT, Juliane: “Jewish settlements threaten the viability of Palestinian state” Der Spiegel, 17Aug09
AVNI, Ronit: “Want to stop Israeli settlements? Follow the dollars”, The Washington Post, 25Jun09
BLAU, Uri:  “Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlements”,  Haaretz, 1 February 2009

NEWS ITEMS:

“Israeli settlement building plans”, Sky News Australia, 5Sep09

VIDEOS:

“Israeli settlers: ‘This land belongs to the Jewish people’” The Guardian, 23Aug09

INFORMATION AND STATISTICS

B’Tselem data


FAQS Courtesy of IMEU

1. What is the Obama administration’s position on Israeli settlement activity?

President Barack Obama: “Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward.” Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 18, 2009

“…each party has obligations under the road map. On the Israeli side those obligations include stopping settlements… And in my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu I was very clear about the need to stop the settlements…” Meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, May 28, 2009

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” Speech at the American University of Cairo, June 4, 2009

Vice President Joseph Biden: “Israel has to work towards a two-state solution. You’re not going to like my saying this, but not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow the Palestinians freedom of movement based on their first actions… This is a ’show me’ deal – not based on faith – show me.” Speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference, May 5, 2009  VicePresidentBidenPC09

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “… the President was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions… And we intend to press that point.”Meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Ali Aboul Gheit, May 27, 2009

2. How have Israeli officials responded to U.S. calls for an end to settlement activity?

Israel has rejected American calls for it to honor past agreements and stop all settlement activity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Israel will continue to allow “natural growth” construction in existing settlements. And while Defense Minister Ehud Barak proposed that Israel evacuate 22 unauthorized settlement outposts, Interior Minister Eli Yishai has announced plans to allocate ministry reserve funds to support settlement expansion throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On August 18, in what has been interpreted as a goodwill gesture to President Obama, Israeli officials announced a “waiting period” or alleged moratorium on new building in the settlements. The waiting period, however, falls far short of Israel’s obligation to implement a comprehensive and immediate freeze on all settlement activities as stipulated in the 2001 Mitchell Report and the 2003 Road Map.

Many analysts, in fact, see the gesture as nothing more than a smokescreen aimed at masking continued settlement expansion. According to Dror Etkes, of the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, there is no sign of a slowdown in actual settlement construction. In an interview with the Associated Press, Etkes said that “In practice, on the ground, construction is continuing, and the pace is even picking up.” According to Israel’s Peace Now, 1000 housing units are currently under construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And just one day after Israeli officials leaked news of this so-called limited settlement freeze, Ha’aretz’s business supplement, The Marker, reported that the Israeli government is expected to invite bids for 450 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev.

3. What is “natural growth?”

Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, calls the insistence on natural growth a “very deliberate distraction.” “Construction in settlements,” he says “is not aimed only at accommodating children of settlers. It’s aimed at drawing more Israelis across the Green Line boundary between Israel and the West Bank.” Population figures confirm Gorenberg’s contention.

While the average population growth rate inside Israel is 1.8 percent, in the settlements it is 5.5 percent, and during the Oslo period fluctuated between 7 and 9 percent. This phenomenon is due to higher birth rates and Israeli government efforts to promote migration to the settlements. In 2007, the last year for which official figures are available, Israelis moving for the first time into the Occupied Territories accounted for 37 percent of the growth in the settler population (not including Occupied East Jerusalem).

Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, recently said, “Washington has a strong enough memory of what Netanyahu did with natural growth last time he was prime minister, which is basically drive a settlement truck through that loophole.”

4. What benefits does Israel provide to settlers?

Israel promotes migration to the settlements in a variety of ways. It labels most of the settlements as “national priority areas”, giving settlers access to substantial economic assistance. This assistance includes, “generous loans for the purchase of apartments, part of which is converted to a grant; significant price reductions in leasing land; incentives for teachers, exemption from tuition fees in kindergartens, and free transportation to school; grants for investors, infrastructure for industrial zones, etc.; incentives for social workers; and [until 2003] reductions in income tax for individuals and companies.”

Israel also provides local and regional governments with funding much greater than that disbursed inside Israel. In 2000, local governments of settlements received 65% more funding per capita than local governments inside Israel received. Regional settler governments received 165% more funding than their counterparts in Israel.

Finally, the Israeli government funds the entire budget of the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division. This allows the WZO to promote and assist migration to settlements in ways that government ministries cannot.

5. What are unauthorized outposts?

While all settlement activity in Occupied Palestinian Territory is prohibited by international law, “outposts” are settlements that are established without Israeli government approval. There are currently at least 110 such outposts. (PLO Negotiation Affairs Department – Negotiations Support Unit, “Summary of Israeli Road Map Violations since Annapolis.”) They are often comprised of mobile homes, huts and shacks that are both easily removed and easily replaced. For example, the Ma’oz Esther outpost has been repeatedly removed by the Israeli army and then subsequently rebuilt by settlers. The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now dismisses such removals as “P.R. in light of the Washington meeting between Netanyahu and Obama” and an attempt “to create a false facade of outpost evacuation.”

Such claims carry particular weight in the aftermath of the Israeli government’s 2005 Sasson Report. The report found that despite outposts being illegal under Israeli law, over the years numerous Israeli government ministries provided funds and material to construct and maintain the outposts.

6. What have past agreements said about settlements?

Oslo Accords (1993)

The Oslo Accords left discussion of settlements to final status negotiations which were to begin no later than 1996 and to be completed by 1998. The Accords called for “a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.” UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 war, emphasizes “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calls for the “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State.” By basing the solution to the conflict on UNSC Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords implicitly call for the removal of the settlements.

Israeli Settlement Activity Post-Oslo

In 1992, the year before the Oslo Accords, there were 246,400 settlers living in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. During the Oslo years from 1993 to 2000, the Israeli settler population expanded by 71 percent. The Israeli government built 21,999 new housing units and the population grew to 371,904.

Roadmap to Peace (2003)

In 2003, President George W. Bush released the Roadmap to Peace, a document accepted by both the Israelis and Palestinians. Phase one of the roadmap outlines two actions Israel must take regarding settlements: “[Government of Israel] immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001″ and “Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).”

Did Israel Comply?

From 2003 to 2007, Israel built 8,820 new housing units in settlements. And despite removing its settlers from Gaza in 2005, in 2007, Israel still had 133 official settlements, 102 unauthorized settlement outposts and 468,500 settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Annapolis Conference (2007)

On November 27, 2007, President Bush released the “joint understanding” document that the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to at the Annapolis Conference. It stated in part that, “The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map… The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty”. Therefore Israel remained obligated to freeze all settlement expansion and remove outposts.

Did Israel Comply?

From December 2007 until May 2009, Israel began construction on 962 new housing units, in addition to the 3,229 units already under construction at the time that the joint understanding was issued. In March 2009, Peace Now revealed that Israel has drawn up plans to build 73,302 settlement housing units in 24 different settlements. There are now 133 official settlements, 110 outposts, and a settler population of 485,200 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (PLO Negotiation Affairs Department – Negotiations Support Unit, “Summary of Israeli Road Map Violations since Annapolis”).

7. Do Israeli settlements violate international law?

Israel’s settlements exist in clear violation of international law. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which bars an occupying power from moving its citizens into the occupied region. They also violate The Hague Regulations, which forbid the occupier from making permanent changes in the occupied territory unless it is a military necessity.

The United Nations Security Council has passed several resolutions labeling Israel’s settlements as violations of international law. As well, in 2004, the International Court of Justice passed a unanimous ruling that the settlements violated international law.

8. What is the impact of the settlements on a two-state solution?

Israeli settlements pose a serious obstacle to the international consensus for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Currently, settlement-related infrastructure (including settler-only roads, army bases, the separation wall, closed military zones, checkpoints, etc.) consumes 38% of the West Bank. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) notes that, “The West Bank has been dissected into dozens of enclaves by the settlements and related infrastructure.” TheHumanitarianImpactOfIsraeliInfrastructureTheWestBank_Intro.pdf

Without removing the settlements, a contiguous and viable Palestinian state is not possible. President Bush recognized this, stating in April 2008 that, “I assured the president [Abbas] that a Palestinian state’s a high priority for me and my administration: a viable state, a state that doesn’t look like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope.”

This information was written by Editor on August 16, 2009