Israel plans to expand illegal settlements

By Mel Frykberg | Last updated: Sep 16, 2008 - 1:37:00 PM

Israeli Settlement Map
Graphic courtesy, Fondation for Middle East Peace

JERUSALEM (IPS/GIN) - Israel has published requests for bids for construction of 1,761 illegal housing units for Israeli settlers in occupied east Jerusalem alone, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now.

The expansion plans come despite promises to freeze all settlement growth made by the Israeli government at last year’s peace summit at Annapolis, Md.

“Once again this government has shown that its words and commitments are meaningless, and they have no intention of keeping to their word,” Peace Now said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed repeatedly that settlement construction or expansion in the West Bank is contrary to international law and Israel’s commitments under the “road map” peace process.

The road map was a series of peace-building measures proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002 and subsequently developed by the diplomatic Quartet of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon further urged Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to dismantle outposts erected since March of 2001.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, normally a diehard supporter of Israel, also expressed her concern about the settlement-building during her last visit to Israel several months ago.

“It’s important to have an atmosphere of confidence and trust,” Sec. Rice said following talks she held with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. “The United States believes that the (settlement) actions and the announcements that are taking place are indeed having a negative effect on the atmosphere for negotiation.”

The new construction should not be allowed to shape future Israeli-Palestinian borders, which remain under negotiation, Sec. Rice said.

The Geneva Conventions specifically forbid the transfer of a civilian population into occupied territory.

But even as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was meeting with Abbas in Jerusalem in August, in an endeavor to further the peace process, plans for further settlement construction were already under way.

At the beginning of August, prior to Peace Now’s statement, the Israel Lands Authority published tenders for the construction of 130 new housing units in Har Homa, East Jerusalem.

The Har Homa neighborhood and all east Jerusalem settlements were built on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel subsequently incorporated the areas into Jerusalem’s boundaries in a move not recognized internationally.

In addition to the public announcement of the tenders, there are currently 500 houses already under construction in Har Homa, and 240 in the settlement of Maaleh Adumim in East Jerusalem.

At the same time as the Har Homa tenders were being published, Israeli officials also called for bids from construction companies to build more than 300 apartments in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem, as well as about 20 minutes’ drive from Jerusalem.

This came on top of Olmert’s approval at the beginning of the year to build 750 new houses in the Givat Zeev settlement northwest of Jerusalem and 100 in the Ariel settlement in the northern West Bank.

There are approximately 430,000 Israeli settlers residing illegally in the West Bank.

The principal tool used to take control of land is to declare it state land. This process began in 1979, and is based on a manipulative implementation of the Ottoman Lands Law of 1858, which applied in the area at the time of occupation.

Other methods employed by Israel to take control of land include seizure for military needs, declaration of land as “abandoned assets,” and the expropriation of land for public needs.

Related links:

Israeli Checkpoints in West Bank (Jatonyc.org)

Palestine: If Americans Knew (FCN Interview, 12-24-2007)

Black, Palestinian solidarity in the struggle for justice (FCN, 10-25-2007)

Israeli Apartheid: Striking parallels to South Africa (FCN, 08-08-2006)

Jews Not Zionists (JewsNotZionists.org)

The Final Call