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Thread: Israel Earmarks 10% more of West Bank for Settlement Expansion

  1. #1

    Israel Earmarks 10% more of West Bank for Settlement Expansion

    Israel Earmarks 10% of West Bank for Settlement Expansion

    Israel Defense Ministry plan earmarks 10 percent of West Bank for settlement expansion
    Newly released maps indicate Civil Administration secretly setting aside additional land for Jewish settlements, presumably with the intention of expanding them.

    link to article




    The yellow in this map of the West Bank shows the areas earmarked for settlement expansion. The green line is the border. The purple shows the West Bank security fence.


    For years Israel’s Civil Administration has been covertly locating and mapping available land in the West Bank and naming the parcels after existing Jewish settlements, presumably with an eye toward expanding these communities.

    The Civil Administration, part of the Defense Ministry, released its maps only in response to a request from anti-settlement activist Dror Etkes under the Freedom of Information Law.


    In some places the boundaries of the parcels outlined in the maps coincide with the route of the West Bank separation barrier.

    The state has argued before the Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the route of the separation barrier was based on Israel’s security needs. But Civil Administration’s maps and figures, disclosed here for the first time, suggest the barrier route was planned in accordance with the available land in the West Bank, intended to increase the area and population of the settlements.

    A total of 569 parcels of land were marked out, encompassing around 620,000 dunams ‏(around 155,000 acres‏) − about 10 percent of the total area of the West Bank. Since the late 1990s, 23 of the unauthorized outposts were built on land included in the map. The Civil Administration is endeavoring to legalize some of these outposts, including Shvut Rahel, Rehelim and Hayovel.

    Etkes believes this indicates the settlers who built the outposts had access to the administration’s research on available land − more proof of the government’s deep involvement in the systematic violation of the law in order to expand settlements, he says.

    The maps name numerous communities that do not exist. These include Shlomzion, on land belonging to the Palestinian town of Aqraba, east of Nablus; Lev Hashomron, on the land of Kafr Haja, between Nablus and Qalqilyah; Mevo Adumim, on the lands of al-Azariya and Abu Dis; and Mitzpeh Zanoah and Mitzpeh Lahav, in south Mount Hebron.

    The names of several sites suggest they are earmarked for the expansion of existing settlements, although some of the parcels are several kilometers distant from their namesakes. These include Immanuel Mizrah, Elkana Bet, Beit Aryeh Gimmel and Tekoa Sheet’hei Mir’ey, among others.

    The maps also mark 81 sites on 114,000 dunams in areas A and B, which are under Palestinian civil control, indicating the Civil Administration began identifying available land before the Oslo Accords. But these parcels have not been updated in several years because Israel cannot build settlements on them.

    All the other areas − 506,000 dunams in Area C, have been updated in the past decade. This implies the administration earmarked the sites as reserves for future use, says Etkes.

    More than 90 percent of this land is east of the separation barrier, beyond the main settlement blocs.

    “This means the administration currently updates the ‘land bank,’ flouting the peace process, which is based on the two-state principle,” Etkes said.

    Most of the marked areas − 485,000 dunams in area C − are classified as state lands. About 7,600 dunams are classified as “Jewish land” from before 1948, and 12,800 dunams are unclassified. way. Presumably the administration sees them as state lands, says Etkes.

    Under international pressure Israel has drastically reduced new claims of land for the state. In a letter to Nir Shalev of Bimkom − Planners for Planning Rights, the Civil Administration said that in 2003-09 a total of 5,000 dunams were declared state lands, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of dunams in previous decades.

    Some 375,000 dunams in Area C are not included in the jurisdiction of the settlements, which take up some 9.5 percent of the West Bank.

    A 2007 Peace Now report indicated that only nine percent of the land in the settlements’ jurisdiction were in use. The administration’s map reveals the existence of another land reserve. Although only a small part has been officially allocated to the settlements, it is being constantly updated by the administration.

    The Civil Administration said in a response that the maps are a data bank that is updated from time to time and does not indicate plans to expand settlements, which is a complex procedure requiring discussions and permits.
    Last edited by Agorism; 03-31-2012 at 01:07 AM.



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  3. #2

  4. #3
    All the lip service before elections by Obama about Palestinian plight now looks like another can of horse $#@!. Does anyone remember when was the last time Obama addressed issue of freedom state for Palestinians?

    Major unreported story is that current aipac funded regime of obama/biden is completely executing agenda of liberal wing of neocon lobbies. Stir up flames of wars/violent rebellions/"freedom" interventions all across countries around Israel one after another and yet do not only zilch for freedom of violently oppressed Palestinians but actually punish them for using a peaceful mechanism of UN voting to seek freedom? This is just another example of his opportunistic hypocricies in a long list of spinning lies before election. No wonder no one in America or around the world respects this guy now.

  5. #4
    Americans don't realize that Netanyahu is a radical.

    Netanyahu proposed ethnically cleansing Israel of all Palestinian citizens by doing so in times of world distraction.

    In 1989, while he was Deputy Foreign Minister for Likud, Netanyahu stated before an audience at Bar-Ilan University that Israel should have exploited the Tiananmen Square massacre (while international attention and media were focused on China) to conduct "large-scale" expulsions (i.e., ethnic cleansing) of the Palestinians. The Jerusalem Post quoted him to that effect on November 19, 1989. Netanyahu later denied making such a statement, but the Jerusalem Post produced a tape recording of his speech. He was also quoted in the newspaper Hotam advocating "mass expulsions" of Palestinians.

  6. #5
    Is Nettanyahu even Jewish? Or is he just one of those weird Christians who claim to care about Jews, or claim to be Jewish, when really they just have a Jew fetish, and that right in front of Jews themselves, they're so perverse about their Jew-fetish fantasies that they still act like an $#@!? Honestly, their actions are as if they have some weird fetish or something!
    Last edited by Lishy; 04-01-2012 at 04:32 AM.

  7. #6
    Have no idea what he belives in but some of his US sponsors certainly come across as fascists.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Lishy View Post
    Is Nettanyahu even Jewish? Or is he just one of those weird Christians who claim to care about Jews, or claim to be Jewish, when really they just have a Jew fetish, and that right in front of Jews themselves, they're so perverse about their Jew-fetish fantasies that they still act like an $#@!? Honestly, their actions are as if they have some weird fetish or something!
    He is a Zionist.
    I am the spoon.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Lishy View Post
    Is Nettanyahu even Jewish? Or is he just one of those weird Christians who claim to care about Jews, or claim to be Jewish, when really they just have a Jew fetish, and that right in front of Jews themselves, they're so perverse about their Jew-fetish fantasies that they still act like an $#@!? Honestly, their actions are as if they have some weird fetish or something!
    That is some harsh language, are you talking about Christian Zionists like Hagee/McCain etc?



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  11. #9
    Nothing wrong with infrastructure as long as anyone is able to purchase it

  12. #10
    Then there is this bombshell that Obama's people may wish to censor in US:


    The writer suggests Obama is turning his back on liberal zionism and supporting settlers taking over Palestinian land. This is pretty remarkable in the post 9/11 world, just few days ago US Senate candidate in CT reiterated in debates that 9/11 attck was motivated by Israeli settlements and occupation of Palestinians.


    Published 02:52 09.04.12 Latest update 02:52 09.04.12

    Obama is turning his back on Zionism

    US President Barack Obama is not blind, and nor is he deaf or dumb. He is just another politician who has turned his back on the values with which he grew up and the people who believed in him, in order to remain in office.


    By Akiva Eldar

    Presidential election season in the United States is obviously an especially good time to enlarge settlements in the West Bank and strike new roots in the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

    The incumbent president reads a report about the establishment of a new outpost for the evacuees from Migron and stuffs another matzo ball into his mouth. The secretary of state hears that the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa is to be expanded and asks the spokesman to send out the usual response - the same one that was used for the Gilo plan and those of Har Shlomo, the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah and Ras al-Amud.

    "And what should I say to the journalist who asked for information about that other issue ... what's it called? Oh yes, the peace process," the spokesman remembers on his way to the door. "He said something to the effect that the Quartet's last deadline for presenting the positions of the sides on borders and security passed last week, and that the Israeli document was reminiscent of a grocery store list rather than positions." The secretary of state sighs: "Tell the nudnik that there's no one to talk to at present, and that you'll get back to him when the Passover holiday is over."

    That's what an American administration does when it wants to do the best for Israel. Really? Does President Barack Obama not know that a two-state solution and expanding the settlements in the heart of the occupied territories are, as they say over there, an oxymoron? Does he not understand that Har Homa's constant encroachment upon Bethlehem and the penetration by right-wing extremists into Sheikh Jarrah are designed to wipe out the last chance for a reasonable arrangement in Jerusalem?

    Does he believe there is a Palestinian leader who is willing to hold negotiations with Israel at a time when Jewish thugs, if they aren't busy chasing Palestinians off their lands, are setting fire to mosques or chopping down olive trees? Is the leader of the free world blind to the fact that when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about two states, he is referring to a Palestine without the Jordan Valley, Gush Etzion, Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and, of course, without one grain of sand from the eternally holy soil of [the East Jerusalem neighborhood of] Shuafat?


    Obama is not blind, and nor is he deaf or dumb. He is just another politician who has turned his back on the values with which he grew up and the people who believed in him, in order to remain in office.

    In his new book, "The Crisis of Zionism," Prof. Peter Beinart tells the story of the black president who grew up in the heart of the Jewish community and betrayed the heroes of his moral values - Abraham Heschel and Stephen Wise, two liberal Zionist rabbis who dared to condemn the settlement enterprise and were pushed to the sidelines.
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/obama...onism-1.423313



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