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Israeli Settlements Must Be Evacuated, as Infringement of Palestinian Human Rights and Violation of International Law

Illegal Israeli Settlements Control 42% of Palestinian West Bank Lands

Tuesday July 06, 2010 13:23 by B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center For Human Rights In The Occupied Territories

Some half a million illegal Israeli settlers are now living over lands they stole from the Palestinian people, with assistance from the Israeli occupation government. More than 300,000 live in 121 settlements and about one hundred outposts, which control 42 percent of the land area of the West Bank, and the rest in twelve neighborhoods that Israel established on land it annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality.

File - Image by B'Tselem

By Hook and By Crook: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank...

The report analyzes the means employed by Israel to gain control of land for building the settlements. In preparing the report, B'Tselem relied on official state data and documents, among them Attorney Talia Sasson’s report on the outposts, the database produced by Brigadier General Baruch Spiegel, reports of the state comptroller, and maps of the Civil Administration.

The settlement enterprise has been characterized, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank.

The principal means Israel used for this purpose was declaration of “state land,” a mechanism that resulted in the seizure of more than 900,000 dunams of land (sixteen percent of the West Bank), with most of the declarations being made in 1979-1992.

The interpretation that the State Attorney's Office gave to the concept “state land” in the Ottoman Land Law contradicted explicit statutory provisions and judgments of the Mandatory Supreme Court. Without this distorted interpretation, Israel would not have been able to allocate such extensive areas of land for the settlements.

In addition, the settlements seized control of private Palestinian land. By cross-checking data of the Civil Administration, the settlements’ jurisdictional area, and aerial photos of the settlements taken in 2009, B'Tselem found that 21 percent of the built-up area of the settlements is land that Israel recognizes as private property, owned by Palestinians.

To encourage Israelis to move to the settlements, Israel created a mechanism for providing benefits and incentives to settlements and settlers, regardless of their economic condition, which often was financially secure.

Most of the settlements in the West Bank hold the status of National Priority Area A, which entitles them to a number of benefits: in housing, by enabling settlers to purchase quality, inexpensive apartments, with an automatic grant of a subsidized mortgage; wide-ranging benefits in education, such as free education from age three, extended school days, free transportation to schools, and higher teachers’ salaries; for industry and agriculture, by grants and subsidies, and indemnification for the taxes imposed on their produce by the European Union; in taxation, by imposing taxes significantly lower than in communities inside the Green Line, and by providing larger balancing grants to the settlements, to aid in covering deficits.

Establishment of the settlements violates international humanitarian law. Israel has ignored the relevant rules of law, adopting its own interpretation, which is not accepted by almost all leading jurists around the world and by the international community.

The settlement enterprise has caused continuing, cumulative infringement of the Palestinians’ human rights, as follows:

* the right of property, by seizing control of extensive stretches of West Bank land in favor of the settlements;

* the right to equality and due process, by establishing separate legal systems, in which the person’s rights are based on his national origin, the settlers being subject to Israel’s legal system, which is based on human rights and democratic values, while the Palestinians are subject to the military legal system, which systematically deprives them of their rights;

* the right to an adequate standard of living, since the settlements were intentionally established in a way that prevents urban development of Palestinian communities, and Israel’s control of the water sources prevents the development of Palestinian agriculture;

* the right to freedom of movement, by means of the checkpoints and other obstructions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank, which are intended to protect the settlements and the settler’s traffic arteries;

* the right to self-determination, by severing Palestinian territorial contiguity and creating dozens of enclaves that prevent the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state.

The cloak of legality that Israel has sought to give to the settlement enterprise is aimed at covering the ongoing theft of West Bank land, thereby removing the basic values of legality and justice from Israel’s system of law enforcement in the West Bank. The report exposes the system Israel has adopted as a tool to advance political objectives, enabling the systematic infringement of the Palestinians’ human rights.

The extensive geographic-spatial changes that Israel has made in the landscape of the West Bank undermine the negotiations that Israel has conducted for eighteen years with the Palestinians and breach its international obligations.

The settlement enterprise, being based on discrimination against the Palestinians living in the West Bank, also weakens the pillars of the State of Israel as a democratic country and diminishes its status among the nations of the world.

B'Tselem: Settlements must be evacuated

Published today (updated) 06/07/2010 13:14

Bethlehem - Ma'an -

Forty-two percent of the West Bank is governed by the illegal Israeli settlement councils, Israeli rights organization B'Tselem revealed in a new study about illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, published Tuesday.

Released as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington, the report By Hook and by Crook: Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank, uses government reports, Civil Administration maps and military documents to compile a picture of "the mechanisms used to gain Israeli control of land in the West Bank."

The publication came out one day after the Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran a report saying settlers were poised to build some 2,700 settlement units as soon as the 10-month partial settlement freeze on some West Bank settlements comes to an end at the close of September.

By cross-referencing Civil Administration data with 2009 aerial photos of settlements, B'Tselem said it found that a full 21% of the built-up areas of settlements are built on private Palestinian lands, recognized by the state as such.

"In taking over all of these lands, the settlement enterprise has, since its inception, treated international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law in an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal manner," a statement from the report writers said, adding that the report proved false claims that Israel was only building on "state land" in the West Bank.

The report counted 300,000 setters living in 121 settlements and about one hundred outposts in the West Bank, and another 200,000 living in Jerusalem settlements, illegally annexed to Israel in the 1970s.

Dispelling myths about settlements

The B'Tselem report addressed several arguments made by the state of Israel and settlement supporters, using data to debunk the idea that settlements grew only to accommodate natural growth - citing a 20% increase of settler population despite a negative growth rate for Israel over the year - and illustrating several "benefits and incentives Israel provides to encourage Israelis to move to the settlements," the report said.

Underscoring an earlier problematic declaration of a settlement construction freeze, the report found that between 2004, when Israel said a freeze would be undertaken as part of the Road Map implementation, to 2009, the settler population grew by 28% not including growth in East Jerusalem.

The report further questioned the placement of settlements, saying allocation of 66% of settlements as "state land" was "only possible through a manipulative interpretation of all relevant laws in force in the West Bank."

B'Tselem numbers showed 900,000 dunams of land - 16% of the West Bank - was declared state land for the purpose of settlement construction, and explained that Israeli government interpretations of Ottoman Land Law, used to declare the area under the jurisdiction of the state, "contradicted explicit statutory provisions and judgments of the Mandatory Supreme Court."

According to the rights group, "[w]ithout this distorted interpretation, Israel would not have been able to allocate such extensive areas of land for the settlements."

Call for evacuation

Based on the findings of its latest report, lawyers and rights workers with B'Tselem called for the "Israeli government evacuate all the settlements, in a manner that respects the settlers’ human rights, including the payment of compensation."

The group said the settlements were an infringement of Palestinians’ human rights and a violation of international law, and suggested that until settlements can be evacuated, interim measures should be taken, including a "real freeze on new and planned construction," an end to land seizures, and cancellation of the benefits and incentives to encourage migration to the settlements.

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