The two faces of Israel’s government policies on the West Bank has been evident since the Camp David/Taba negotiations in 2000, when Barak allegedly offered the Palestinians 97% of the West Bank, while settlers were pouring in a rate never seen before. For that matter, throughout the period of the hopeful Oslo talks settlements doubled, giving the impression that Oslo was being used to cover up Israeli expansionism. Barak later admitted that he was incapable of removing not even a single settlement in the West Bank, irrespective of what Clinton later offered, verbally, at Taba. The formula: talk peace, continue the colonization, blame the Palestinians, holds today as never before.
Settlements is truly a euphemism for the more than 150 Israeli-only towns and cities in the West Bank, along with the industries and agricultural projects that support them, and the vast network of Israeli-only roads and highways that interconnect them with Israel. Today as yesterday, they continue to be expanded, while so-called “illegal” settlements, of which there may be as many as 100, continue to be protected by the Israeli Occupation Forces. (All settlements are illegal by international law, but Israel has declared exception to such a notion.) For that matter, the Israeli military not only continues house demolitions, but it protects armed settlers, who harass Palestinian farmers by cutting down their orchards and plowing up their farmlands in an effort to encourage them to leave.
Lest anyone believe that the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was completed in 1948 or in 1967, think again. Every year, tens of thousands of Palestinians leave the West Bank and Gaza because their lives were made impossible to endure through house demolitions and crop and orchard destruction.
The sole purpose of the military occupation of the West Bank is obviously to protect and enforce continued Israeli expansionism. Israel is not interested in peace. It is interested in completing the religious/nationalist Zionist dream of Ben Gurion, Israel’s most famous ethnic cleanser.
This report, International Protest Against the Expansion of Settlements in the Hebron District, was written by Ahmad Jaradat and Anahi Ayala Iacucci of the Alternative Information Center (AIC) on Friday, 27 April 2007, and is here reprinted with permission.
It gives an example of what is going on in the West Bank that only confirms this rendition of Israel’s (and Olmert’s) long term intents.
A demonstration took place on Saturday morning, 21 April, in the West Bank Palestinian village of Beit Ummar , located in the northern part of the Hebron district. Beit Ummar is an agricultural village of about 12,000 people, located between the Bethlehem and Hebron municipalities, close to the Israeli settlement of Karmi Tzor.
The demonstration was organized by the Popular Committee of Hebron District, through the Popular Committee of Beit Ummar village, along with members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), the Palestinian Solidarity Project, Volunteers for Peace, and activists and pacifists from different countries and associations, in addition to some local journalists. They all joined together with the farmers of the village to plant olive trees on the village land.
The village of Beit Ummar has seen the religious settlement of Karmi Tzor, with more than 800 inhabitants, increasing in size and population since it was founded 23 years ago. Moreover, the violence of the settlers towards the farmers and the villagers grows has grown at pace with the size of the settlement.
During the demonstration, the activists went to the portion of land that is close to the fence built by the settlers during the space of a week, almost one year ago. A previous fence existed, but the settlers decide to build another one, expanding the territory enclosed. Formally, this was done in order to have a bigger security zone around the settlement, but practically it was a step forward in preparation for the next stage of settlement expansion.
Only few months ago, the lands all the way up to the settlement fence were accessible to the farmers. The Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that the fence could be built, but the farmers still retained the right to go to work their land on the other side. In practice, the farmers were not allowed to work the land as promised, and now three families there have lost part of their land, with no possibility to cultivate these lands.
The problem with the settlement is not only related to the land that they have already stolen from the Palestinians of Beit Ummar, but that in addition, the settlers prevent the farmers from cultivating their lands that still are on the “Palestinian” side of the fence. Saturday, before the arrival of the activists, a farmer was shot by the private security of the settlement with tear gas while he was working his land.
The demonstration began with an explanation by a representative of the popular committee of the village about the present situation and the continuous attacks that the farmers face each day. Following this explanation, the farmers and demonstrators chanted and marched towards the fields with hundreds of olive trees in tow.
When the group was still quite far from the fence, Israeli soldiers arrived. The real problems started, however, when the people chose to plant the trees directly behind the fence. At that point, the soldiers entered through a gate located in the fence, which divided the settlement from the village, entering into the “Palestinian area,” and began to argue with the demonstrators.
The soldiers demanded that the farmers and demonstrators vacate the area. Following this, the settlement’s private security arrived, called for the soldiers to force the activists to leave, and screamed insults to the persons involved in the planting. Although they tried to stop the action, all the hundreds of trees were eventually planted, and, at the end of the demonstration, internationals and locals celebrated this small victory with chanting and patriotic songs.
When activists have not been present, the Israeli soldiers have often resorted to shooting rubber bullets and tear gas. This time, to the surprise of the farmers and local activists who have been organizing activities for the past two weeks against the illegal confiscation of the land, the soldiers refrained. Nevertheless, after the demonstration–out of the sight of the eyes of the international activists and media that were at the demonstration just two hours before–the soldiers took their revenge: three farmers that were working their land were beaten.
The settlement of Karmi Tzor is not only a problem for the village of Beit Ummar , but also for the village of Halhul , on the opposite side of the settlement. Here, three large Palestinian families are faced with the same problems. Madiaj, Abu Yousef and Abu Dayya families had their land confiscated two years ago in order to expand the settlement, but after that, the settlers started building another fence to prevent the farmers from reaching their land.
On 12 April, farmer Adnan Younis Karaja was working on the portion of his land that was not confiscated by the fence, when settlers arrived and began verbally abusing him and demanding that he vacate his land. When the man refused, they beat him with stones and forced him to leave. All this happened in front of Israeli police officers and soldiers, who did nothing to stop the settlers.
On 21 April, settlers repeated their actions against Hassan Akil and Abdallah Akil, when they went to their fields to work. They were cultivating the land when the settlers came and they forced them to leave.
This Monday, 23 April, Jihad Akil and Khadier Akil were in their field working, when settlers arrived and began shooting in the air, continuing for almost 15 minutes, in an attempt to intimidate the men. Following this display, the private security of the settlement took their IDs for a while, to register their names or control them. When the soldiers arrived, the settlers gave back the documents to the two farmers and went away.
The policy of the settlers to continually increase the scope of the occupation of Palestinian land is always the same. They begin with an outpost, and then it becomes a settlement, then from tens of houses they being to confiscate all the land around them, with or without the Israeli government’s authorization. In any case, once the outpost exists, it becomes a precedent towards legitimizing the occupation.
The settlers not only have their own private security force controlling and intimidating the Palestinians unlucky enough to live close by, they are also are helped by the Israeli military, which does little to stop the continuous violence perpetrated by the settlers upon the Palestinian civilians. The Israeli military often presents itself as protector of the Palestinians from the settlers, but the reality is completely different. The military is involved in those crimes as force of occupation and because they do little to intervene to stop the settlers.
Israel and Palestine will never have a real peace without negotiating the total withdrawal of all the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Oslo agreements, with their utopian call to stop the construction of new settlements, in fact gave Israel a level of legitimacy to freely continue its policy of occupation “at any price.” Now, Israel is completing its work constructing the Wall, which acts as a pretext to confiscate more land, and has given an impetus to the expansion of settlements in an effort to be a large enough presence that they will be included in the path of the Wall.
Does anyone doubt the two faces of Israel?
