NOVANEWS
Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem
Chair of West Midland PSC
The settlers must come home not only because of the security and diplomatic damage these colonialist polices are causing Israel; Israeli society, particularly in the periphery, is also paying a high economic price for the passion for real estate in the West Bank. For example, the number of construction projects started in Israel in 2009 was 34,280 overall (according to the Central Bureau of Statistics ), of which 4,174 were public buildings (about 12 percent ). The rate of public building in the south of the country stood at 16.6 percent. That same year, however, the rate of public building in “Judea and Samaria” stood at 33.7 percent – and this was more or less the ratio seen in the two preceding years as well. [Akiva Eldar, item 7]
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Good Evening Dear Friends,
And it is a better evening than yesterday’s and the one the day before, and the day before that, because today there was no shooting on either side here. A cease fire of sorts is in effect between Israel and Gaza, hopefully for a long, long time. Of course, had Israel agreed to lifting the blockade on Gaza the violence might have ended, period. Oh, there will always be some exceptions who will remain violent. But when people are happy, when they have a present and also a future to look forward to, most are content to just leave things that way. But Israel’s leaders do not want to find a way to peace. They want the ‘greater Israel’ without Palestinians, or, for that matter, any one else who isn’t Jewish and whose presence is a demographic threat. That’s the way it is in countries where demography is more important than democracy and human rights.
The international press did not have much more on Israel today than the past few days. Other issues fill their pages. But the Washington Post came up with an item that I’ve not seen in our domestic press yet, or perhaps have missed it: the IOF is going to arm combat soldiers with cameras and videos! Item 4.
The quote at the top of the page is the most important statement in today’s op-ed by Akiva Eldar. The statistics are important. To add to those above, the Jewish population increase in the West Bank last year was 5-6% vs less than 2% in Jerusalem, and yet much less elsewhere. The reason for this is the perks that the government gives to entice Israelis to live in the West Bank. Israelis who live there live, as it were, in the suburbs. They live under Israeli law vs Palestinians who live under military occupation, and 75% of the Israelis who live in the WB work in Israel (Eldar’s statistic, below). Give them the same or similar perks to entice them back to Israel, and all but the most religious idealists (fundamentalists, in other words), will go for it.
Of the 8 items below, Amira Hass’s article on the Supreme Court being on the wrong side of the separation wall is number 1. Sickening. But the courts in Nazi Germany also obeyed and went along with the government. This is nothing new here. I’ve been to more than one Supreme Court session on the question of whose land. The so-called ‘security’ issue always determines the verdict, and it is mostly in favor of the government and settlers. Someone should write a book on the numbers of ways to steal land legally. Israel has much expertise in this.
Item 2 reports that the US has agreed to give Israel $205 million for the development of the Iron Dome system.—this is in addition to the $3billion that it gives Israel annually for military aid. Hey all of you Americans! Are you so well off that you can afford this? You should be screaming, “No” to your government, because your taxes are paying for this. I know that some of you are. Maybe if you also tell your government that Israel should make peace, not war so that it won’t need iron domes someone will hear you.
Item 3 informs us that the Israeli company Elbit is to supply artillery to Africa (no country names mentioned). I recall the time when Israel’s main export was oranges, and then after also cut diamonds. Both preferable to arms. But that was long ago.
Item 4 is on the new arms being distributed to combat soldiers so that they can prove that they did not commit war crimes. Ha! Instead of telling soldiers not to commit war crimes or worse, they will be given cameras and videos to show that they killed but not intentionally!
Item 5 is good news for the moment. The approval of Jerusalem building plans have been delayed. Wonder who is putting the pressure on Israel?
Item 6 is a few vignettes from Palestinian sources of events on the West Bank—just so that you remember that it is under Occupation, and what that means to the Palestinian inhabitants.
Item 7 is Akiva Eldar’s op-ed on the time has come to disengage from the West Bank.
Item 8, Gisha in ‘Deconstructing the construction boom in Gaza’ sets right certain figures and facts that Israel would prefer to keep under wraps.
That’s it for tonight.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. Haaretz,
April 11, 2011
Supreme Court is on wrong side of West Bank separation fence
A recent ruling demonstrates the bureaucratic machinery the state has created to restrict the Palestinians’ ability to enter, live and work on land west of the separation fence.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/supreme-court-is-on-wrong-side-of-west-bank-separation-fence-1.355251
By Amira Hass
Anyone who suspects the Supreme Court and its judges of leftism should read the latest ruling on “The Israeli Seam Zone Permit Regime.” In plain language, this is the bureaucratic machinery that the Defense Ministry and the Civil Administration have created to restrict to the absolute minimum Palestinians’ entry, time spent, and ability to live and work on lands in the West Bank that are west of the separation fence. To be more exact, it refers to Israel’s annexation of 184,868 dunams (about 45,682 acres ), for now, of Palestinian land trapped between the fence and the Green Line.
Read the ruling issued by the Supreme Court, sitting in its capacity as the High Court of Justice, in files 9961/03 and 639/04 from April 5 of this year, and you, the distrustful, will be put at ease.
With more than half a million settlers living in spacious settlements that encroach upon suffocating Palestinian enclaves, the court is still convinced Palestinian lands have been taken over for security reasons. Politicians regard the route of the separation fence as “the effective border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” but Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch writes that “we can but hope that this is a need that is of a temporary nature, because alongside the need to fight terrorism, the uninvolved civilian population is, to our great regret, also harmed.”
Over the past eight years, except for certain sections that it ruled must be changed, the High Court of Justice has endorsed the invasive route of the separation fence (85 percent of which is within the West Bank, far from the Green Line, according to OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ).
The process was completed last week when the court handed down, without any fanfare, its rulings on two petitions, one submitted by Hamoked – the Center for the Defense of the Individual, in 2003; the other by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, in 2004. The petitioners did not argue over the route of the fence, but over the dispossession of Palestinians from their lands, in practice, and the discrimination between Jews and Palestinians.
Stuck in between
The fence’s invasive route cuts off a considerable chunk of land – some 9.5% of the total area of the West Bank – from its natural owners, the Palestinian community. As a permanently declared closed military zone, only Israelis and tourists are permitted to enter, travel and hike there, and only Jews are permitted to settle there. The entry, movement and housing for Palestinians in those areas, meanwhile, is kept to a minimum. Three groups of the population are directly affected by this.
First of all, the tens of thousands of residents who live east of the fence but whose lands lie to its west. There are towns and villages that cannot expand or build as their natural growth would require. What is permitted for Alfei Menashe is forbidden to Qalqilyah; what is permitted for the settlement of Na’aleh is forbidden to Na’alin.
The second group directly affected includes those with the bad luck of having their homes situated in this in-between area: 3,000 people who are required to have a special permanent permit from the Civil Administration allowing them to live in their own homes. All the others – family members, friends, doctors, teachers, garbage collectors, TV technicians – must undergo an exhausting bureaucratic process to obtain a temporary permit (“for personal purposes” or “for infrastructure workers” or “for medical teams” ) to visit – and not everyone can get it, and not each time a request is submitted.
The third group is made up of the farmers whose lands are imprisoned behind closed gates, heavy locks and a cumbersome machinery of soldiers who are never in a hurry. In the beginning, the state had promised two-year agricultural permits. In 2006, 10,037 such permits were issued. Another 214 temporary permits were given to farmers whose claims to the land had not yet been decided. A total of 3,881 short-term work permits were also issued to agricultural workers and family members of farmers.
But since then, there’s been a steady decline in the number of permanent permits issued. In 2010, only 1,200 Palestinians received “permanent agricultural permits” for a period of more than one year, as the Civil Administration reported to ACRI just one week ago. Another 392 Palestinians received permits ranging in length from six months to one year, while another 1,167 got “agricultural permits in the seam area” – those whose rights to the land had not been made clear. On the other hand, the number of work permits issued skyrocketed to 18,630 – of these 8,583 were valid for one to three months, and 7,463 for six months to one year.
No problem for Beinisch
Overall this is okay, according to Beinisch and her colleagues on the bench, Eliezer Rivlin and Ayala Procaccia. Beinisch commented on the drop in the number of visiting permits issued “for personal purposes” (from 11,000 in 2007 to 5,200 in 2009 ) and asked the Civil Administration to be more flexible.
She also noted the fact that no reasonable timetable had been fixed within which to process the permit requests.
But “this time too,” Beinisch wrote, “we could not ignore the vital security purpose which lies at the basis of the decision to close the seam area… We came to the conclusion that, subject to a number of changes fully detailed above, the decision to close the seam area and to impose the Permits Regime there withstands the tests of legality and we therefore do not see reason for intervention on our part.”
She also took Moked to task for comparing the situation to apartheid.
What apparently does not concern the High Court in any way is the constant Israeli tendency to divide the Palestinian population into categories and sub-categories.
These sub-categories are recognizable by the lack of freedom of movement the Palestinians face on their own expanse of land. The drop in the number of “permanent farmers” offers further proof that Israel has made the bureaucratic process of determining Palestinian ownership of land even more complicated.
It allows temporary workers to go and work in the area. They may be the children or the grandchildren of the owners of the land, but their ownership is not recognized.
Will Israel decide in another 10 years that this land does not have any owners? And then the honorable High Court justices will be able to rule that this is indeed so, and that without an owner the Sovereign (Israel ) is permitted to do with the land as it wills?
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2. Security Aid
Iron Dome Photo: Herzl Yosef
US to support Iron Dome funding
Democrats, republicans slated to approve 2011 budget this week enabling Obama to increase security aid to Israel, transfer $205 million for development of anti-missile system
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4055093,00.html
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – The United States is slated to provide Israel with $430 million worth of security aid in the near future which will include $205 million allocated for the development of Iron Dome batteries.
Democrats and republicans are slated to finalize the 2011 budget in the coming days.
The delay in the approval of the funds was caused by foot-dragging in passing the budget in Congress.
The budget was meant to pass five months ago but partisan conflicts delayed its approval.
According to an agreement between the US and Israel for the next 10 years, 2011 aid was slated to grow to $3 billion (from $2.77 billion) in addition to an extra $205 million for the development of the Iron Dome system.
It is estimated Obama will sign the 2011 budget on Wednesday or Thursday.
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3. Ynet,
April 10, 2011
Major Deal
ATMOS self-propelled artillery (archives)
Elbit to supply artillery systems to Africa
Contact signed with African country, valued at some $24 million, calls for supply of Soltam self-propelled artillery, command stations, target acquisition systems, command and control solutions
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4054369,00.html
Ynetnews
Elbit Systems Ltd. announced Wednesday that it was awarded a contract to supply self-propelled artillery and accompanying systems to an African country.
The contract, valued at approximately $24 million, will be performed over the next two years. This is the first contract announcement regarding Soltam Systems Ltd. since its recent acquisition by Elbit Systems.
The contract calls for the supply of a complete solution, including Soltam’s ATMOS self-propelled artillery, command stations, observation and target acquisition systems, as well as fire control and command and control systems.
In addition, Elbit Systems will manage the training and maintenance during the project’s duration.
Bezalel Machlis, Elbit Systems’ executive vice president and general manager – Land and C4I Division, commented, “This new contract highlights the high synergetic value within our various land activities, allowing us to provide our customers with complete unique solutions, from artillery platforms, to target acquisition systems, through to advanced command and control solutions that connect all of the systems.”
Machlis added: “Our integrative solution, combining Soltam’s artillery systems and our range of advanced electronic capabilities, provides a cutting-edge operational solution suitable for the growing trend of a transition to wheeled mobile platforms for artillery.”
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4. Washington Post,
April 11, 2011
Israel to arm combat soldiers with still and video cameras to counter any war crimes claims
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-to-arm-combat-soldiers-with-still-and-video-cameras-to-counter-any-war-crimes-claims/2011/04/11/AFRxLcKD_story.html
By Associated Press
JERUSALEM — The next time Israel goes to war, its combat soldiers will likely be carrying cameras in addition to more conventional weapons.
Reeling from war crimes accusations during a major offensive against Hamas-ruled Gaza more than two years ago, the Israeli military is studying the wide distribution of cameras as a tool to make its case to the world.
The plan would appear to put Israel at the vanguard of such efforts around the world — and reflects the intense and growing scrutiny of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.
Critics said the military would never be able to prove such images weren’t edited.
The military said Monday that it is considering distributing cameras, mainly to infantry and armored units.
Israeli media said a final decision is expected soon. The reports say that during a two-week course, soldiers from different units will be taught how to take pictures and learn about the international media.
The Israeli military has long recognized the importance of PR in modern warfare and has a strong online presence in social networks such as Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.
Video captured by military videographers has been used in the battle over international opinion.
Last year, during its deadly raid against a Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla, Israeli footage showed its commandos being assaulted with sticks and metal rods by pro-Palestinian activists before troops opened fire.
Over the weekend, military airstrikes killed 19 Palestinians — including six civilians. To back arguments that it had to fire into civilian areas, the military uploaded footage taken from one of its drones showing militants preparing a rocket-launcher inside a residential neighborhood.
The idea to distribute cameras to soldiers stems from a growing awareness of Israel’s international isolation, in particular in recent years. The move also reflects Israel’s status as a web-savvy society in which use of smartphones and social media is commonplace.
Israel’s image was badly battered by its three-week-long war against Gaza, launched after years of being targeted by rockets from Gaza. About 1,400 Gazans were killed in the war, including hundreds of civilians, along with 13 Israelis.
A U.N. report has concluded that both sides might have committed war crimes — Israel by using excessive force in one of the world’s most crowded territories and Hamas by indiscriminately firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel.
There was a strong feeling in Israel that the world did not understand the difficulty of fighting militants who locate themselves among civilians. However, Israeli critics have said the military sent soldiers into battle with vague open-fire orders and instructions that they should put their safety above anything else.
Since the Gaza war, the military has increased efforts to document its activities.
“Whereas once we only had professional cameraman joining the troops, we are now exploring training combat soldiers to take pictures and video themselves,” said Capt. Barak Raz, a military spokesman.
The idea is that just as each infantry company has a trained medic, a radio operator and a heavy machine gun specialist, so too would it have a trained cameraman, from within its rank-and-file.
Ofer Shelah, a military commentator, dismissed the plan as absurd.
“There will always be those who will say we edited the material or that we are just showing what is convenient for us,” he said. “So long as we are the strong side and we are facing a bunch of gangs, it will be very difficult to portray ourselves to the world the way we see ourselves — as victims.”
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
© 2011 The Washington Post Company
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5. Ynet,
April 11, 2011
No Construction
PM Netanyahu. Because of Quartet meeting? Photo: AP
Approval of J’lem building plans delayed
Four major housing project beyond Green Line removed from District Committee’s agenda following PM’s intervention, Ynet learns
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4055063,00.html
Ronen Medzini
Four extensive construction plans in Jewish neighborhoods located beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem have been removed from the agenda of the District Planning and Construction Committee following the prime minister’s direct intervention, Ynet has learned.
The move is apparently aimed to prevent an embarrassment before a meeting of the Quartet on the Middle East, scheduled for April 15, a day after the committee was slated to discuss and approve the building plans.
The international community is expected to oppose the expansion of the Jewish neighborhoods and view it as a unilateral move on Israel’s part.
Har Homa. PM’s Office intervened (Photo: Reuters)
The postponed projects include the plan for the construction of 942 housing units in the Gilo neighborhood, which was approved by a Jerusalem Municipality committee only last week. The move caused great anger in the United States during President Shimon Peres’ visit, including a State Department statement expressing “deep concern” over the new plan.
The rest of the plans will not be included in the agenda in the near future: The construction of 980 housing units housing units in the Har Homa neighborhood, 625 units in Pisgat Ze’ev and 180 in Ramot.
Committee sources confirmed the report, saying that “we have updated the agenda, but the Pisgat Ze’ev plan has been delayed until after Passover.”
The sources said they received no explanations on the decision to remove the plans from the agenda, but admitted that there were external pressures.
The Interior Ministry said in response that “the committee is sovereign in determining its agenda and discusses everything on the agenda. From time to time, and under different circumstances, the agenda is edited and changed.”
The Prime Minister’s Office declined comment.
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6, Palestine Telegraph,
11 April 2011 07:32
RSS Israeli police dogs attack Palestinian in Hebron Samar Mohaisen
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/west-bank/8883-israeli-police-dogs-attack-palestinian-in-hebron.html
West Bank, (Pal Telegraph)- A Palestinian was hospitalized Monday due to injuries inflicted his body as Israeli soldiers attacked him by police dogs during his way to work .
Local sources told SAFA News Agency that the injured identified as Raed Al-Najjar, 20, was attacked on Allafa road southern Hebron. Two similar attacks were reported in the same area.
Local sources confirmed that two Palestinians were injured today at the entrance of Al-Uroob refugee camp as Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets at them.
Several citizens of Beit Kahel town received notices to meet occupation intelligence following home raids, sources added.
Settlers also burned plastic materials and shoes in front of houses and shops in Al Dbuya area in Hebron.
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Palestine Telegraph,
11 April 2011 07:00
RSS Israeli army imposes curfew on Awarta for 3rd day Hits: 148
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/west-bank/8882-israeli-army-imposes-curfew-on-awarta-for-3rd-day.html
Samar Mohaisen
West Bank, (Pal Telegraph)-Israeli occupation forces invaded Sunday evening Awarta village in the south east of Nablus city and imposed a curfew for the third day in a row .
Head of the village council, Qias Awad, said that several neighborhoods of the village were still under a curfew since Friday overnight . Israeli soldiers continued searching civilians’ homes causing a state of tension among villagers.
Israel intensified its military operation in Awarta village, especially after the murder of five settlers in Itammar settlement. Dozens of peoples were forcibly detained including more than 100 women who were taken to Hawara camp as part of investigation.
Yesterday , Israeli forces invaded the village and imposed a curfew declaring it as a military closed area .
Israeli forces carried out massive razing operation to agricultural lands in Awarta village as hundreds of dunums in the area were previously seized to expand Itammar settlement.
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Palestine News and Info Agency WAFA Monday, April 11, 2011
Settlers Continue Seizing Land, Uprooting Trees in West Bank Date : 11/4/2011 Time : 18:09
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WEST BANK, April 11, 2011(WAFA)- Israeli Settlers Monday continued their brutal attacks on Palestinian land by seizing land and uprooting trees in the West Bank.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15862
In Tubas, Head of the Al-Malih and Bedouin Communities in the Jordan Valley, Aref Daraghmeh, said that settlers of ‘Rotem’ Settlement, built on Tubas’s land, seized land in the northern Jordan Valley and In Tubas governate, and planted them with olive trees to prove they own these lands, although the Palestinians have legal papers of their ownership to these lands.
He called on Palestinians not to leave their land and cling to the ownership rights over that land. He also called on all human rights, humanitarian and international organizations to stop being a bystander and take measures to defend Palestinians as he believes that “silence on a crime is participating in it”.
In Hebron, Spokesman of the National Committee Against the Wall and settlement in Beit Ummar, Mohammed Awad, told WAFA that Israeli forces and settlers of ‘Bat Ayin’ settlement, attacked Palestinians and their property in Beit Ummar, a village northwest of Hebron, uprooted more than 45 olive trees and declared it as a closed military zone.
Witnesses told WAFA that settlers protected by Israeli soldiers and police today, also broke into Hebron Cemetery, adjacent to the ‘Shuhada’ Street, in Hebron city, and wrote racist slogans on the walls, causing a state of terror and panic among Palestinian students and citizens.
Witnesses added that Settlers beaten some Palestinian boys at the entrance of the ‘Shuhada’ Street.
Witnesses in Tel Rumeida,a neighborhood in the center of Hebron city, said that settlers are heavily spread in the area of Tel Rumeida, and they raise their flags and write their slogans on the walls.
In salfit, Israeli forces uprooted and seized olive trees in an area near Bassa spring, west of Deir Istiya town.
According to mayor of Deir Istiya, Nazmi Salman, an Israeli bulldozer accompanied by a military force uprooted 19 olive trees owned by Qasim Mansur and took them away.
He said that Israeli settlers from the ‘Amoni’l settlement, which is built on Deir Istiya land, drowned the entrance of Wadi Qana with wastewater.
F.R.
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Quarter of Palestinians Live Below Poverty Line, PCBS Date : 11/4/2011
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http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15859
RAMALLAH, April 10, 2011 (WAFA) – One out of four Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was living below poverty line in 2010, Sunday said the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). This was divided into 18.3% in the West Bank and 38.0% in Gaza Strip.
The poverty line for a household of two adults and three children was set in 2010 at 2,237 Israeli shekels ($609, where $1 equals 3.73 shekels).
The 2010 rate is similar to the corresponding rate of nearly 26.2% in 2009 (19.4% in the West Bank and 38.3% in Gaza Strip) that was based on a household composed of two adults and four children.
The PCBS has changed the poverty rate calculation for 2010 based on a household of two adults and three children.
Similarly, about 14.1% of individuals were living below the deep poverty line in 2010 (8.8% in the West Bank and 23.0% in Gaza Strip), compared with 13.7% in 2009 (9.1% in the West Bank and 21.9% in Gaza Strip).
The deep poverty line for a household of two adults and three children stood at 1,783 Israeli shekels ($478).
Social assitance for households reduced poverty among individuals by 16.8% in the Palestinian Territory in 2010, ( 10.7% in West Bank and 21.2% in Gaza Strip).
In 2009, assitance for households reduced poverty among individuals by 17.9% in the Palestinian Territory, (12.6% in West Bank and 22.1% in Gaza Strip).
Poor households in the Gaza Strip are poorer than the poor households in the West Bank, according to the PCBS.
M.A.
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The release of the prisoner Hafeth Bornat
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=352&Itemid=1
Israeli occupation forces released this afternoon the prisoner Hafeth Bornat from the village of Bil’in, after the end of his sentence nine-year stint in the prisons of the occupation.
Note that it have been delayed his release for a week, where he was supposed to have been released in 02/04/2011, It is part of the occupation policy to undermine the resolve and morale of the prisoners and their families and put them under stress.
The prisoner was received at the entrance of Ofer prison along with his family and a large crowd of villagers and citizens, they rising Palestinian flags ,flags of the Fatah movement and banners of the prisoner Marwan Barghouti. They chanted slogans demanding liberalization of all prisoners and end the occupation, and then they gone towards to the tomb of the martyr leader Yasser Arafat, where the status of a prisoner wreath of flowers at the tomb of the martyr, and they read al FATEHA , then the liberated prisoner procession returned back to the village of bil’in.
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7. Haaretz,
April 11, 2011
It’s time for disengagement No. 2
As long as the government does not evacuate Kfar Tapuah and Sheikh Jarrah, the children of Sderot and Ashdod will not be safe.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/it-s-time-for-disengagement-no-2-1.355253
By Akiva Eldar
Every rocket launched from the Gaza Strip toward Sderot and Ashdod serves as “further proof” that the evacuation of the Gush Katif settlement bloc was a bad bargain. And once again we are being warned that “this is what will happen to Kfar Sava and Netanya if we withdraw from Judea and Samaria.” And once again the settlers are able to pull the wool over people’s eyes, turning themselves from a security burden into a strategic asset.
One can make the claim that, were the Israel Defense Forces still deployed in the Strip, they’d make it difficult for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to smuggle war materiel in and fire rockets at Israel. But what security benefits would the residents along the Gaza border actually acrue if we continued to sustain the tinderboxes in Gush Katif?
For many long years, Israeli soldiers were killed defending the lives of 8,000 Jews who chose to settle in the heart of a population of 1.5 million Palestinians. On their behalf, Israel expropriated one-third of the land of the most densely populated area in the world. The 2005 disengagement from Gaza was intended to put an end to the outrageous waste of human lives and resources, and to lift from Israel’s shoulders the international pressure to begin serious negotiations on a final-status solution. As could have been expected, the withdrawal from Gaza did not help solve the disagreements over the West Bank and Jerusalem, or the problem of the refugees. International pressure to open negotiations on the basis of the June 4, 1967 borders, and to freeze the settlements, is only growing stronger.
No country in the world can relate seriously to the claim that the Gush Katif disengagement proves that the settlements in “Judea and Samaria” are not an obstacle to peace. The presence of settlers in the West Bank worsens Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians and disrupts the capabilities of the Palestinian Authority’s security mechanisms. The IDF, the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Police are required to allocate large forces to protect the settlers from their Palestinian neighbors, who consider them robbers, and to protect the Palestinians from the settlers, who relate to them as foreign elements.
The lesson to be learned from the Gaza disengagement is that the time has come to start evacuating the West Bank settlements. Contrary to the unilateral disengagement from Gaza, the withdrawal from the West Bank should be carried out as an agreed-on down payment with the PA, in the framework of renewing the final-status talks. Such a move would increase Israel’s military and diplomatic maneuvering room to counter the firing of missiles from Gaza, while decreasing the popular support among Palestinians for Hamas.
Contrary to what happened in Gush Katif, there would not be a need to evacuate every settler and every settlement from “Judea and Samaria.” According to the Geneva Initiative map – which proposes an exchange of territory to the tune of 2.5 percent of the West Bank – 95 percent of the 100,000 ultra-Orthodox settlers and 80 percent of the 100,000 settlers in non-religious settlements would be annexed to Israel. Most of the evacuees would not require employment services, as 75 percent of them reside in the territories but go to work every day in Israel.
The settlers must come home not only because of the security and diplomatic damage these colonialist polices are causing Israel; Israeli society, particularly in the periphery, is also paying a high economic price for the passion for real estate in the West Bank. For example, the number of construction projects started in Israel in 2009 was 34,280 overall (according to the Central Bureau of Statistics ), of which 4,174 were public buildings (about 12 percent ). The rate of public building in the south of the country stood at 16.6 percent. That same year, however, the rate of public building in “Judea and Samaria” stood at 33.7 percent – and this was more or less the ratio seen in the two preceding years as well.
Responding to the WikiLeaks documents published in Haaretz this weekend, the chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, Danny Dayan, said that even if the settlers are offered “sky-high bribes, the number of those who will be tempted to accept this will be negligible and not significant from the settlement point of view.” If Dayan is so sure that his flock wishes to remain on its land, why does he hold these people hostage? Why does the Yesha chairman fear the evacuation-compensation law, which already offers those settlers on isolated settlements who wish to do so to return to the sovereign territory of Israel and enjoy fair rehabilitation services?
As long as the government does not evacuate Dayan’s colleagues from Kfar Tapuah and Sheikh Jarrah, the children of Sderot and Ashdod will not be safe. Nor will the residents of Kfar Sava and Netanya.
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