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LAND GRAB Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank
May 2002
Researched and written by Yehezkel Lein in collaboration with the Eyal Weizman - architect
Translated by Shaul Vardi and Zvi Shulman Introduction 3Chapter One: Policy, Processes and Institutions: Basic Concepts 6Chapter Two: The Settlements in International Law 20Chapter Three: The Mechanism Used to Seize Control of Land 30Chapter Four: The Annexation Policy and Local Government 50Chapter Five: Benefits and Financial Incentives 57Chapter Six: The Planning System 68Chapter Seven: An Analysis of the Map of the West Bank 74Chapter Eight: The Ari’el Settlement 94Conclusions 102
Introduction
In December 2001, a long article appeared in Ha’aretz under the headline “Five Minutes from Kfar Saba – A Look at the Ari’el Region.”[1] The article reviewed the real estate situation in a number of “communities”[2] adjacent to the Trans-Samaria Highway in the vicinity of Ari’el. The article included the information that most of the land on which these “communities” were established are “state-owned land,” and that “despite the security problems and the depressed state of the real estate market, the situation in these locales is not as bad as might be expected.”
The perspective from which this article was written (the real estate market) and the terminology it employs largely reflect the process of the assimilation of the settlements into the State of Israel. As a result of this process, these settlements have become just another region of the State of Israel, where houses and apartments are constructed and offered to the general public according to free-market principles of supply and demand.
This deliberate and systematic process of assimilation obscures a number of fundamental truths about the settlements: the “communities” mentioned in the article are not part of the State of Israel, but are settlements established in the West Bank − an area that has been occupied territory since 1967. The fundamental truth is that the movement of Israeli citizens to houses and apartments offered by the real estate markets in these “communities” constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The fundamental truth is that the “state-owned” land mentioned in the article was seized from Palestinian residents by illegal and unfair proceedings. The fundamental truth is that the settlements have been a continuing source of violations of the human rights of the Palestinians, among them the right to freedom of movement, property, self-determination, and improvement in their standard of living. The fundamental truth is that the growth of these settlements is fueled not only by neutral forces of supply and demand, but primarily by a sophisticated governmental system designed to encourage Israeli citizens to live in the settlements. In essence, the process of assimilation blurs the fact that the settlement enterprise in the Occupied Territories has created a system of legally sanctioned separation based on discrimination that has, perhaps, no parallel anywhere in the world since the dismantling of the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
As part of the mechanism used to obscure these fundamental truths, the State of Israel makes a determined effort to conceal information relating to the settlements. In order to prepare this report, B’Tselem was obliged to engage in a protracted and exhaustive struggle with the Civil Administration to obtain maps marking the municipal boundaries of the settlements. This information, which is readily available in the case of local authorities within Israel, was eventually partially provided almost one year after the initial request, and only after B’Tselem threatened legal action. The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians did not lead to the evacuation of even one settlement, and the settlements even grew substantially in area and population during this period. While at the end of 1993 (at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Principles) the population of the settlements in the West Bank (including settlements in East Jerusalem) totaled some 247,000, by the end of 2001 this figure had risen to 380,000.
The agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority entailed the transfer of certain powers to the PA; these powers apply in dozens of disconnected enclaves containing the majority of the Palestinian population. Since 2000, these enclaves, referred to as Areas A and B, have accounted for approximately forty percent of the area of the West Bank. Control of the remaining areas, including control of roads providing transit between the enclaves, as well as points of departure from the West Bank, continues to rest with Israel.
This report, which is the continuation of several reports published by B’Tselem in recent years,[3] examines a number of aspects relating to Israeli policy toward the settlements in the West Bank and to the results of this policy in terms of human rights and international law. The report also relates to settlements in East Jerusalem that Israel established and officially annexed into Israel; under international law, these areas are occupied territory whose status is the same as the rest of the West Bank.
This report does not relate to the settlements in the Gaza Strip. Though similar in many ways to their counterparts in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip settlements differ in several respects. For example, the legal framework in the Gaza Strip differs from that applying in the West Bank in various fields, including land laws; these differences are due to the different laws applying in these territories prior to 1967.
This report comprises eight chapters.
· Chapter One presents a number of basic concepts on the principal plans implemented by the Israeli governments, the bureaucratic process of establishing new settlements, and the types of settlements. · Chapter Two examines the status of the settlements and settlers according to international law and briefly surveys the violations of Palestinian human rights resulting from the establishment of the settlements. · Chapter Three discusses the bureaucratic and legal apparatus used by Israel to seize control of land in the West Bank for the establishment and expansion of settlements. The chief component of this apparatus, and the main focus of the chapter, is the process of declaring and registering land as “state land.” · Chapter Four reviews the changes in Israeli law that were adopted to annex the settlements into the State of Israel by turning them civilian enclaves within the occupied territory. This chapter also examines the structure of local government in the settlements in the context of municipal boundaries. · Chapter Five examines the economic incentives Israel provides to the settlers and settlements to encourage Israelis to move to the West Bank and to encourage those already living in the region to remain there. · Chapter Six analyzes the planning mechanism applied by the Civil Administration in the West Bank, which is responsible for issuing building permits both in the settlements and in Palestinian communities. This mechanism plays a decisive role in the establishment and expansion of the settlements, and in limiting the development of Palestinian communities. · Chapter Seven analyzes the map of the West Bank attached to this report. This analysis examines the layout of the settlements by area, noting some of the negative ramifications the settlements have on the human rights of the Palestinian population. · Chapter Eight focuses in depth on the Ari’el settlement and the ramifications of its establishment on the adjacent Palestinian communities. This chapter also discusses the expected consequences of Ari’el’s expansion according to the current outline plan. |
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